WAR OF THE SUCCESSION IN SPAIN

(January 1833) _History of the War of the Succession in Spain. By LORD

MAHON. 8vo. London: 1832._

|THE days when Miscellanies in Prose and Verse by a Person of Honour,

and Romances of M. Scuderi, done into English by a Person of Quality,

were attractive to readers and profitable to booksellers, have long gone

by. The literary privileges once enjoyed by lords are as obsolete as

their right to kill the king’s deer on their way to Parliament, or as

their old remedy of scandalum magnatum. Yet we must acknowledge that,

though our political opinions are by no means aristocratical, we always

feel kindly disposed towards noble authors. Industry, and a taste for

intellectual pleasures, are peculiarly respectable in those who can

afford to be idle and who have every temptation to be dissipated. It

is impossible not to wish success to a man who, finding himself placed,

without any exertion or any merit on his part, above the mass

of society, voluntarily descends from his eminence in search of

distinctions which he may justly call his own.

This is, we think, the second appearance of Lord Mahon in the character

of an author. His first book was creditable to him, but was in

every respect inferior to the work which now lies before us. He has

undoubtedly some of the most valuable qualities of a historian,

great diligence in examining authorities, great judgment in weighing

testimony, and great impartiality in estimating characters. We are not

aware that he has in any instance forgotten the duties belonging to his

literary functions in the feelings of a kinsman. He does no more than

justice to his ancestor Stanhope; he does full justice to Stanhope’s

enemies and rivals. His narrative is very perspicuous, and is also

entitled to the praise, seldom, we grieve to say, deserved by modern

writers, of being very concise. It must be admitted, however, that, with

many of the best qualities of a literary veteran, he has some of the

faults of a literary novice. He has not yet acquired a great command of

words. His style is seldom easy, and is now and then unpleasantly stiff.

He is so bigoted a purist that he transforms the Abbe d’Estrees into

an Abbot. We do not like to see French words introduced into English

composition; but, after all, the first law of writing, that law to which

all other laws are subordinate, is this, that the words employed shall

be such as convey to the reader the meaning of the writer. Now an Abbot

is the head of a religious house; an Abbe is quite a different sort of

person. It is better undoubtedly to use an English word than a French

word; but it is better to use a French word than to misuse an English

word.

Lord Mahon is also a little too fond of uttering moral reflections in a

style too sententious and oracular. We shall give one instance: “Strange

as it seems, experience shows that we usually feel far more animosity

against those whom we have injured than against those who injure us: and

this remark holds good with every degree of intellect, with every class

of fortune, with a prince or a peasant, a stripling or an elder, a hero

or a prince.” This remark might have seemed strange at the Court

of Nimrod or Chedorlaomer; but it has now been for many generations

considered as a truism rather than a paradox. Every boy has written on

the thesis “Odisse quem loeseris.” Scarcely any lines in English poetry

are better known than that vigorous couplet,=

```“Forgiveness to the injured does belong;

```But they ne’er pardon who have done the wrong.”=

The historians and philosophers have quite done with this maxim, and

have abandoned it, like other maxims which have lost their gloss, to bad

novelists, by whom it will very soon be worn to rags.

It is no more than justice to say that the faults of Lord Mahon’s book

are precisely the faults which time seldom fails to cure, and that the

book, in spite of those faults, is a valuable addition to our historical

literature.

Whoever wishes to be well acquainted with the morbid anatomy of

governments, whoever wishes to know how great states may be made feeble

and wretched, should study the history of Spain. The empire of Philip

the Second was undoubtedly one of the most powerful and splendid that

ever existed in the world. In Europe, he ruled Spain, Portugal, the

Netherlands on both sides of the Rhine, Franche Comte, Roussillon, the

Milanese, and the Two Sicilies. Tuscany, Parma, and the other small

states of Italy, were as completely dependent on him as the Nizam and

the Rajah of Berar now are on the East India Company. In Asia, the King

of Spain was master of the Philippines and of all those rich settlements

which the Portuguese had made on the coast of Malabar and Coromandel,

in the Peninsula of Malacca, and in the Spice-islands of the Eastern

Archipelago. In America his dominions extended on each side of the

equator into the temperate zone. There is reason to believe that his

annual revenue amounted, in the season of his greatest power, to a sum

near ten times as large as that which England yielded to Elizabeth. He

had a standing army of fifty thousand excellent troops, at a time when

England had not a single battalion in constant pay. His ordinary naval

force consisted of a hundred and forty galleys. He held, what no other

prince in modern times has held, the dominion both of the land and of

the sea. During the greater part of his reign, he was supreme on both

elements. His soldiers marched up to the capital of France; his ships

menaced the shores of England.

It is no exaggeration to say that, during several years, his power over

Europe was greater than even that of Napoleon. The influence of the

French conqueror never extended beyond low-water mark. The narrowest

strait was to his power what it was of old believed that a running

stream was to the sorceries of a witch. While his army entered every

metropolis from Moscow to Lisbon, the English fleets blockaded every

port from Dantzic to Trieste. Sicily, Sardinia, Majorca, Guernsey,

enjoyed security through the whole course of a war which endangered

every throne on the Continent. The victorious and imperial nation which

had filled its museums with the spoils of Antwerp, of Florence, and of

Rome, was suffering painfully from the want of luxuries which use had

made necessaries. While pillars and arches were rising to commemorate

the French conquests, the conquerors were trying to manufacture coffee

out of succory and sugar out of beet-root. The influence of Philip on

the Continent was as great as that of Napoleon. The Emperor of Germany

was his kinsman. France, torn by religious dissensions, was never a

formidable opponent, and was sometimes a dependent ally. At the same

time, Spain had what Napoleon desired in vain, ships, colonies, and

commerce. She long monopolised the trade of America and of the Indian

Ocean. All the gold of the West, and all the spices of the East, were

received and distributed by her. During many years of war, her commerce

was interrupted only by the predatory enterprises of a few roving

privateers. Even after the defeat of the Armada, English statesmen

continued to look with great dread on the maritime power of Philip. “The

King of Spain,” said the Lord Keeper to the two Houses in 1593, “since

he hath usurped upon the Kingdom of Portugal, hath thereby grown mighty,

by gaining the East Indies: so as, how great soever he was before, he

is now thereby manifestly more great: . . . He keepeth a navy armed to

impeach all trade of merchandise from England to Gascoigne and Guienne

which he attempted to do this last vintage; so as he is now become as

a frontier enemy to all the west of England, as well as all the south

parts, as Sussex, Hampshire, and the Isle of Wight. Yea, by means of

his interest in St. Maloes, a port full of shipping for the war, he is a

dangerous neighbour to the Queen’s isles of Jersey and Guernsey, ancient

possessions of this Crown, and never conquered in the greatest wars with

France.”

The ascendency which Spain then had in Europe was, in one sense, well

deserved. It was an ascendency which had been gained by unquestioned

superiority in all the arts of policy and of war. In the sixteenth

century, Italy was not more decidedly the land of the fine arts, Germany

was not more decidedly the land of bold theological speculation, than

Spain was the land of statesmen and of soldiers. The character which

Virgil has ascribed to his countrymen might have been claimed by the

grave and haughty chiefs, who surrounded the throne of Ferdinand the

Catholic, and of his immediate successors. That majestic art, “regere

imperio populos,” was not better understood by the Romans in the

proudest days of their republic, than by Gonsalvo and Ximenes, Cortes

and Alva. The skill of the Spanish diplomatists was renowned throughout

Europe. In England the name of Gondomar is still remembered. The

sovereign nation was unrivalled both in regular and irregular warfare.

The impetuous chivalry of France, the serried phalanx of Switzerland,

were alike found wanting when brought face to face with the Spanish

infantry. In the wars of the New World, where something different from

ordinary strategy was required in the general and something different

from ordinary discipline in the soldier, where it was every day

necessary to meet by some new expedient the varying tactics of a

barbarous enemy, the Spanish adventurers, sprung from the common people,

displayed a fertility of resource, and a talent for negotiation and

command, to which history scarcely affords a parallel.

The Castilian of those times was to the Italian what the Roman, in the

days of the greatness of Rome, was to the Greek. The conqueror had less

ingenuity, less taste, less delicacy of perception than the conquered;

but far more pride, firmness, and courage, a more solemn demeanour, a

stronger sense of honour. The subject had more subtlety in speculation,

the ruler more energy in action. The vices of the former were those of a

coward; the vices of the latter were those of a tyrant. It may be added,

that the Spaniard, like the Roman, did not disdain to study the arts and

the language of those whom he oppressed. A revolution took place in the

literature of Spain, not unlike that revolution which, as Horace tells

us, took place in the poetry of Latium: “Capta ferum victorem cepit.”

The slave took prisoner the enslaver. The old Castilian ballads gave

place to sonnets in the style of Petrarch, and to heroic poems in the

stanza of Ariosto, as the national songs of Rome were driven out by

imitations of Theocritus, and translations from Menander.

In no modern society, not even in England during the reign of Elizabeth,

has there been so great a number of men eminent at once in literature

and in the pursuits of active life, as Spain produced during the

sixteenth century. Almost every distinguished writer was also

distinguished as a soldier or a politician. Boscan bore arms with high

reputation. Garcilaso de Vega, the author of the sweetest and most

graceful pastoral poem of modern times, after a short but splendid

military career, fell sword in hand at the head of a storming party.

Alonzo de Ercilla bore a conspicuous part in that war of Arauco, which

he afterwards celebrated in one of the best heroic poems that Spain has

produced. Hurtado de Mendoza, whose poems have been compared to those

of Horace, and whose charming little novel is evidently the model of

Gil-Blas, has been handed down to us by history as one of the sternest

of those iron proconsuls who were employed by the House of Austria to

crush the lingering public spirit of Italy. Lope sailed in the Armada;

Cervantes was wounded at Lepanto.

It is curious to consider with how much awe our ancestors in those times

regarded a Spaniard. He was, in their apprehension, a kind of daemon,

horribly malevolent, but withal most sagacious and powerful. “They be

verye wyse and politicke,” says an honest Englishman, in a memorial

addressed to Mary, “and can, thorowe ther wysdome, reform and brydell

theyr owne natures for a tyme, and applye their conditions to the maners

of those men with whom they meddell gladlye by friendshippe; whose

mischievous maners a man shall never knowe untyll he come under ther

subjection: but then shall he parfectlye parceyve and fele them: which

thynge I praye God England never do: for in dissimulations untyll they

have ther purposes, and afterwards in oppression and tyrarnnye, when

they can obtayne them, they do exceed all other nations upon the

earthe.” This is just such language as Arminius would have used about

the Romans, or as an Indian statesman of our times might use about the

English. It is the language of a man burning with hatred, but cowed by

those whom he hates; and painfully sensible of their superiority, not

only in power, but in intelligence.

But how art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer son of the morning! How

art thou cut down to the ground, that didst weaken the nations! If we

overleap a hundred years, and look at Spain towards the close of the

seventeenth century, what a change do we find! The contrast is as great

as that which the Rome of Gallienus and Honorius presents to the Rome of

Marius and Caesar. Foreign conquest had begun to eat into every part of

that gigantic monarchy on which the sun never set. Holland was gone, and

Portugal, and Artois, and Roussillon, and Franche Comte. In the East,

the empire founded by the Dutch far surpassed in wealth and splendour

that which their old tyrants still retained. In the West, England had

seized, and still held, settlements in the midst of the Mexican sea.

The mere loss of territory was, however, of little moment. The reluctant

obedience of distant provinces generally costs more than it is worth.

Empires which branch out widely are often more flourishing for a little

timely pruning. Adrian acted judiciously when he abandoned the conquests

of Trajan; and England was never so rich, so great, so formidable to

foreign princes, so absolutely mistress of the sea, as since the loss

of her American colonies. The Spanish Empire was still, in outward

appearance, great and magnificent. The European dominions subject to the

last feeble Prince of the House of Austria were far more extensive

than those of Lewis the Fourteenth. The American dependencies of the

Castilian Crown still extended far to the North of Cancer and far to the

South of Capricorn. But within this immense body there was an incurable

decay, an utter want of tone, an utter prostration of strength. An

ingenious and diligent population, eminently skilled in arts and

manufactures, had been driven into exile by stupid and remorseless

bigots. The glory of the Spanish pencil had departed with Velasquez and

Murillo. The splendid age of Spanish literature had closed with Solis

and Calderon. During the seventeenth century many states had formed

great military establishments. But the Spanish army, so formidable under

the command of Alva and Farnese, had dwindled away to a few thousand

men, ill paid and ill disciplined. England, Holland, and France had

great navies. But the Spanish navy was scarcely equal to the tenth part

of that mighty force which, in the time of Philip the Second, had been

the terror of the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. The arsenals were

deserted. The magazines were unprovided. The frontier fortresses were

ungarrisoned. The police was utterly inefficient for the protection

of the people. Murders were committed in the face of day with perfect

impunity. Bravoes and discarded serving-men, with swords at their sides,

swaggered every day through the most public streets and squares of

the capital, disturbing the public peace, and setting at defiance the

ministers of justice. The finances were in frightful disorder. The

people paid much. The Government received little. The American viceroys

and the farmers of the revenue became rich, while the merchants broke,

while the peasantry starved, while the body-servants of the sovereign

remained unpaid, while the soldiers of the royal guard repaired daily to

the doors of convents, and battled there with the crowd of beggars for

a porringer of broth and a morsel of bread. Every remedy which was

tried aggravated the disease. The currency was altered; and this frantic

measure produced its never-failing effects. It destroyed all credit,

and increased the misery which it was intended to relieve. The American

gold, to use the words of Ortiz, was to the necessities of the State

but as a drop of water to the lips of a man raging with thirst. Heaps of

unopened despatches accumulated in the offices, while the ministers were

concerting with bedchamber-women and Jesuits the means of tripping up

each other. Every foreign power could plunder and insult with impunity

the heir of Charles the Fifth. Into such a state had the mighty kingdom

of Spain fallen, while one of its smallest dependencies, a country not

so large as the province of Estremadura or Andalusia, situated under an

inclement sky, and preserved only by artificial means from the inroads

of the ocean, had become a power of the first class, and treated on

terms of equality with the Courts of London and Versailles.

The manner in which Lord Mahon explains the financial situation of

Spain by no means satisfies us. “It will be found,” says he, “that those

individuals deriving their chief income from mines, whose yearly produce

is uncertain and varying, and seems rather to spring from fortune than

to follow industry, are usually careless, unthrifty, and irregular in

their expenditure. The example of Spain might tempt us to apply the same

remark to states.” Lord Mahon would find it difficult, we suspect, to

make out his analogy. Nothing could be more uncertain and varying than

the gains and losses of those who were in the habit of putting into the

State lotteries. But no part of the public income was more certain than

that which was derived from the lotteries. We believe that this case is

very similar to that of the American mines. Some veins of ore exceeded

expectation; some fell below it. Some of the private speculators drew

blanks, and others gained prizes. But the revenue of the State depended,

not on any particular vein, but on the whole annual produce of two great

continents. This annual produce seems to have been almost constantly

on the increase during the seventeenth century. The Mexican mines were,

through the reigns of Philip the Fourth and Charles the Second, in a

steady course of improvement; and in South America, though the district

of Potosi was not so productive as formerly, other places more than made

up for the deficiency. We very much doubt whether Lord Mahon can prove

that the income which the Spanish Government derived from the mines of

America fluctuated more than the income derived from the internal taxes

of Spain itself.

All the causes of the decay of Spain resolve themselves into one cause,

bad government. The valour, the intelligence, the energy which, at the

close of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth century, had

made the Spaniards the first nation in the world, were the fruits of

the old institutions of Castile and Arragon, institutions eminently

favourable to public liberty. These institutions the first Princes

of the House of Austria attacked and almost wholly destroyed. Their

successors expiated the crime. The effects of a change from good

government to bad government are not fully felt for some time after

the change has taken place. The talents and the virtues which a good

constitution generates may for a time survive that constitution. Thus

the reigns of princes, who have established absolute monarchy on the

ruins of popular forms of government often shine in history with a

peculiar brilliancy. But when a generation or two has passed away,

then comes signally to pass that which was written by Montesquieu, that

despotic governments resemble those savages who cut down the tree in

order to get at the fruit. During the first years of tyranny, is reaped

the harvest sown during the last years of liberty. Thus the Augustan age

was rich in great minds formed in the generation of Cicero and Caesar.

The fruits of the policy of Augustus were reserved for posterity. Philip

the Second was the heir of the Cortes and of the Justiza Mayor; and

they left him a nation which seemed able to conquer all the world. What

Philip left to his successors is well known.

The shock which the great religious schism of the sixteenth century gave

to Europe, was scarcely felt in Spain. In England, Germany, Holland,

France, Denmark, Switzerland, Sweden, that shock had produced, with some

temporary evil, much durable good. The principles of the Reformation had

triumphed in some of those countries. The Catholic Church had maintained

its ascendency in others. But though the event had not been the same in

all, all had been agitated by the conflict. Even in France, in Southern

Germany, and in the Catholic cantons of Switzerland, the public mind

had been stirred to its inmost depths. The hold of ancient prejudice had

been somewhat loosened. The Church of Rome, warned by the danger which

she had narrowly escaped, had, in those parts of her dominion, assumed a

milder and more liberal character. She sometimes condescended to submit

her high pretensions to the scrutiny of reason, and availed herself more

sparingly than in former times of the aid of the secular arm. Even when

persecution was employed, it was not persecution in the worst and most

frightful shape. The severities of Lewis the Fourteenth, odious as they

were, cannot be compared with those which, at the first dawn of the

Reformation, had been inflicted on the heretics in many parts of Europe.

The only effect which the Reformation had produced in Spain had been to

make the Inquisition more vigilant and the commonalty more bigoted. The

times of refreshing came to all neighbouring countries. One people alone

remained, like the fleece of the Hebrew warrior, dry in the midst of

that benignant and fertilising dew. While other nations were putting

away childish things, the Spaniard still thought as a child and

understood as a child. Among the men of the seventeenth century, he was

the man of the fifteenth century or of a still darker period, delighted

to behold an Auto da fe, and ready to volunteer on a Crusade.

The evils produced by a bad government and a bad religion, seemed

to have attained their greatest height during the last years of the

seventeenth century. While the kingdom was in this deplorable state, the

King, Charles, second of the name, was hastening to an early grave. His

days had been few and evil. He had been unfortunate in all his wars,

in every part of his internal administration, and in all his domestic

relations. His first wife, whom he tenderly loved, died very young. His

second wife exercised great influence over him, but seems to have been

regarded by him rather with fear than with love. He was childless; and

his constitution was so completely shattered that, at little more than

thirty years of age, he had given up all hopes of posterity. His mind

was even more distempered than his body. He was sometimes sunk in

listless melancholy, and sometimes harassed by the wildest and most

extravagant fancies. He was not, however, wholly destitute of the

feelings which became his station. His sufferings were aggravated by the

thought that his own dissolution might not improbably be followed by the

dissolution of his empire.

Several princes laid claim to the succession. The King’s eldest sister

had married Lewis the Fourteenth. The Dauphin would, therefore, in

the common course of inheritance, have succeeded to the crown. But the

Infanta had, at the time of her espousals, solemnly renounced, in her

own name, and in that of her posterity, all claim to the succession.

This renunciation had been confirmed in due form by the Cortes. A

younger sister of the King had been the first wife of Leopold, Emperor

of Germany. She too had at her marriage renounced her claims to the

Spanish crown; but the Cortes had not sanctioned the renunciation, and

it was therefore considered as invalid by the Spanish jurists. The

fruit of this marriage was a daughter, who had espoused the Elector

of Bavaria. The Electoral Prince of Bavaria inherited her claim to the

throne of Spain. The Emperor Leopold was son of a daughter of Philip

the Third, and was therefore first cousin to Charles. No renunciation

whatever had been exacted from his mother at the time of her marriage.

The question was certainly very complicated. That claim which, according

to the ordinary rules of inheritance, was the strongest, had been

barred by a contract executed in the most binding form. The claim of

the Electoral Prince of Bavaria was weaker. But so also was the contract

which bound him not to prosecute his claim. The only party against whom

no instrument of renunciation could be produced was the party who, in

respect of blood, had the weakest claim of all.

As it was clear that great alarm would be excited throughout Europe if

either the Emperor or the Dauphin should become King of Spain, each of

those Princes offered to waive his pretensions in favour of his second

son, the Emperor, in favour of the Archduke Charles, the Dauphin, in

favour of Philip Duke of Anjou.

Soon after the peace of Ryswick, William the Third and Lewis the

Fourteenth determined to settle the question of the succession without

consulting either Charles or the Emperor. France, England, and Holland,

became parties to a treaty by which it was stipulated that the

Electoral Prince of Bavaria should succeed to Spain, the Indies, and

the Netherlands. The Imperial family were to be bought off with the

Milanese; and the Dauphin was to have the Two Sicilies.

The great object of the King of Spain and of all his counsellors was to

avert the dismemberment of the monarchy. In the hope of attaining this

end, Charles determined to name a successor. A will was accordingly

framed by which the crown was bequeathed to the Bavarian Prince.

Unhappily, this will had scarcely been signed when the Prince died. The

question was again unsettled, and presented greater difficulties than

before.

A new Treaty of Partition was concluded between France, England, and

Holland. It was agreed that Spain, the Indies, and the Netherlands,

should descend to the Archduke Charles. In return for this great

concession made by the Bourbons to a rival house, it was agreed that

France should have the Milanese, or an equivalent in a more commodious

situation, The equivalent in view was the province of Lorraine.

Arbuthnot, some years later, ridiculed the Partition Treaty with

exquisite humour and ingenuity. Everybody must remember his description

of the paroxysm of rage into which poor old Lord Strutt fell, on hearing

that his runaway servant Nick Frog, his clothier John Bull, and his old

enemy Lewis Baboon, had come with quadrants, poles, and inkhorns, to

survey his estate, and to draw his will for him. Lord Mahon speaks of

the arrangement with grave severity. He calls it “an iniquitous compact,

concluded without the slightest reference to the welfare of the states

so readily parcelled and allotted; insulting to the pride of Spain,

and tending to strip that country of its hard-won conquests.” The most

serious part of this charge would apply to half the treaties which have

been concluded in Europe quite as strongly as to the Partition Treaty.

What regard was shown in the Treaty of the Pyrenees to the welfare of

the people of Dunkirk and Roussillon, in the Treaty of Nimeguen to the

welfare of the people of Franche Comte, in the Treaty of Utrecht to the

welfare of the people of Flanders, in the treaty of 1735 to the welfare

of the people of Tuscany? All Europe remembers, and our latest posterity

will, we fear, have reason to remember how coolly, at the last great

pacification of Christendom, the people of Poland, of Norway, of

Belgium, and of Lombardy, were allotted to masters whom they abhorred.

The statesmen who negotiated the Partition Treaty were not so far beyond

their age and ours in wisdom and virtue as to trouble themselves much

about the happiness of the people whom they were apportioning among

foreign rulers. But it will be difficult to prove that the stipulations

which Lord Mahon condemns were in any respect unfavourable to the

happiness of those who were to be transferred to new sovereigns. The

Neapolitans would certainly have lost nothing by being given to the

Dauphin, or to the Great Turk. Addison, who visited Naples about the

time at which the Partition Treaty was signed, has left us a frightful

description of the misgovernment under which that part of the Spanish

Empire groaned. As to the people of Lorraine, an union with France would

have been the happiest event which could have befallen them. Lewis was

already their sovereign for all purposes of cruelty and exaction. He had

kept their country during many years in his own hands. At the peace

of Ryswick, indeed, their Duke had been allowed to return. But the

conditions which had been imposed on him made him a mere vassal of

France.

We cannot admit that the Treaty of Partition was objectionable because

it “tended to strip Spain of hard-won conquests.” The inheritance was

so vast, and the claimants so mighty, that without some dismemberment

it was scarcely possible to make a peaceable arrangement. If any

dismemberment was to take place, the best way of effecting it surely

was to separate from the monarchy those provinces which were at a great

distance from Spain, which were not Spanish in manners, in language, or

in feelings, which were both worse governed and less valuable than

the old kingdoms of Castile and Arragon, and which, having always

been governed by foreigners, would not be likely to feel acutely the

humiliation of being turned over from one master to another.

That England and Holland had a right to interfere is plain. The question

of the Spanish succession was not an internal question, but an European

question. And this Lord Mahon admits. He thinks that when the evil had

been done, and a French prince was reigning at the Escurial, England and

Holland were justified in attempting, not merely to strip Spain of

its remote dependencies, but to conquer Spain itself; that they were

justified in attempting to put, not merely the passive Flemings and

Italians, but the reluctant Castilians and Asturians, under the dominion

of a stranger. The danger against which the Partition Treaty was

intended to guard was precisely the same danger which afterwards was

made the ground of war. It will be difficult to prove that a danger

which was sufficient to justify the war was insufficient to 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 Sicily 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. 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 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 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 intrusted 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 favoured 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

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 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 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.

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 favourite 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 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 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 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 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 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 professional 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, 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 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

the most extraordinary character of that age, the King of Sweden

himself not excepted. Indeed, Peterborough may be described as a polite,

learned, and amorous Charles the Twelfth. His courage had all the French

impetuosity, and all the English steadiness. His fertility and activity

of mind were almost beyond belief. They appeared in everything that

he did, in his campaigns, in his negotiations, in his familiar

correspondence, in his lightest and most unstudied conversation. He was

a kind friend, a generous enemy, and in deportment a thorough gentleman.

But his splendid talents and virtues were rendered almost useless to his

country, by his levity, his restlessness, his irritability, his morbid

craving for novelty and for excitement. His weaknesses had not only

brought him, on more than one occasion, into serious trouble; but had

impelled him to some actions altogether unworthy of his humane and noble

nature. Repose was insupportable to him. He loved to fly round Europe

faster than a travelling courier. He was at the Hague one week, at

Vienna the next. Then he took a fancy to see Madrid; and he had scarcely

reached Madrid, when he ordered horses and set off for Copenhagen. No

attendants could keep up with his speed. No bodily infirmities could

confine him. Old age, disease, imminent death, produced scarcely

any effect on his intrepid spirit. Just before he underwent the most

horrible of surgical operations, his conversation was as sprightly as

that of a young man in the full vigour of health. On the day after the

operation, in spite of the entreaties of his medical advisers, he would

set out on a journey. His figure was that of a skeleton. But his elastic

mind supported him under fatigues and sufferings which seemed sufficient

to bring the most robust man to the grave. Change of employment was as

necessary to him as change of place. He loved to dictate six or seven

letters at once. Those who had to transact business with him complained

that though he talked with great ability on every subject, he could

never be kept to the point. “Lord Peterborough,” said Pope, “would say

very pretty and lively things in his letters, but they would be rather

too gay and wandering; whereas, were Lord Bolingbroke to write to an

emperor, or to a statesman, he would fix on that point which was the

most material, would set it in the strongest and fiercest light, and

manage it so as to make it the most serviceable to his purpose.” What

Peterborough was to Bolingbroke as a writer, he was to Marlborough as

a general. He was, in truth, the last of the knights-errant, brave to

temerity, liberal to profusion, courteous in his dealings with enemies,

the Protector of the oppressed, the adorer of women. His virtues and

vices were those of the Round Table. Indeed, his character can hardly be

better summed up, than in the lines in which the author of that clever

little poem, Monks and Giants, has described Sir Tristram.=

```“His birth, it seems, by Merlin’s calculation,

```Was under Venus, Mercury, and Mars;

```His mind with all their attributes was mixed,

```And, like those planets, wandering and unfixed.=

```“From realm to realm he ran, and never staid:

```Kingdoms and crowns he won, and gave away:

```It seemed as if his labours were repaid

```By the mere noise and movement of the fray:

```No conquests or acquirements had he made;

```His chief delight was, on some festive day

```To ride triumphant, prodigal, and proud,

```And shower his wealth amidst the shouting crowd.=

```“His schemes of war were sudden, unforeseen,

```Inexplicable both to friend and foe;

```It seemed as if some momentary spleen

```Inspired the project, and impelled the blow;

```And most his fortune and success were seen

```With means the most inadequate and low;

```Most master of himself, and least encumbered,

```When overmatched, entangled, and outnumbered.”=

In June 1705, this remarkable man arrived in Lisbon with five thousand

Dutch and English soldiers. There the Archduke embarked with a large

train of attendants, whom Peterborough entertained magnificently during

the voyage at his own expense. From Lisbon the armament proceeded to

Gibraltar, and, having taken the Prince of Hesse Darmstadt on board,

steered towards the north-east along the coast of Spain.

The first place at which the expedition touched, after leaving

Gibraltar, was Altea in Valencia. The wretched misgovernment of Philip

had excited great discontent throughout this province. The invaders

were eagerly welcomed. The peasantry flocked to the shore, bearing

provisions, and shouting, “Long live Charles the Third.” The

neighbouring fortress of Denia surrendered without a blow.

The imagination of Peterborough took fire. He conceived the hope of

finishing the war at one blow. Madrid was but a hundred and fifty miles

distant. There was scarcely one fortified place on the road. The troops

of Philip were either on the frontiers of Portugal or on the coast of

Catalonia. At the capital there was no military force, except a few

horse who formed a guard of honour round the person of Philip. But the

scheme of pushing into the heart of a great kingdom with an army of only

seven thousand men, was too daring to please the Archduke.

The Prince of Hesse Darmstadt, who, in the reign of the late King

of Spain, had been Governor of Catalonia, and who overrated his own

influence in that province, was of opinion that they ought instantly to

proceed thither, and to attack Barcelona, Peterborough was hampered by

his instructions, and found it necessary to submit.

On the sixteenth of August the fleet arrived before Barcelona; and

Peterborough found that the task assigned to him by the Archduke and the

Prince was one of almost insuperable difficulty. One side of the city

was protected by the sea; the other by the strong fortifications of

Monjuich. The walls were so extensive, that thirty thousand men would

scarcely have been sufficient to invest them. The garrison was as

numerous as the besieging army. The best officers in the Spanish service

were in the town. The hopes which the Prince of Darmstadt had formed of

a general rising in Catalonia were grievously disappointed. The invaders

were joined only by about fifteen hundred armed peasants, whose services

cost more than they were worth.

No general was ever in a more deplorable situation than that in which

Peterborough was now placed. He had always objected to the scheme

of besieging Barcelona. His objections had been overruled. He had to

execute a project which he had constantly represented as impracticable.

His camp was divided into hostile factions and he was censured by all.

The Archduke and the Prince blamed him for not proceeding instantly to

take the town; but suggested no plan by which seven thousand men could

be enabled to do the work of thirty thousand. Others blamed their

general for giving up his own opinion to the childish whims of

Charles, and for sacrificing his men in an attempt to perform what was

impossible. The Dutch commander positively declared that his soldiers

should not stir: Lord Peterborough might give what orders he chose; but

to engage in such a siege was madness; and the men should not be sent to

certain death when there was no chance of obtaining any advantage.

At length, after three weeks of inaction, Peterborough announced his

fixed determination to raise the siege. The heavy cannon were sent on

board. Preparations were made for re-embarking the troops. Charles and

the Prince of Hesse were furious, but most of the officers blamed their

general for having delayed so long the measure which he had at last

found it necessary to take. On the twelfth of September there were

rejoicings and public entertainments in Barcelona for this great

deliverance. On the following morning the English flag was flying on the

ramparts of Monjuich. The genius and energy of one man had supplied the

place of forty battalions.

At midnight Peterborough had called out the Prince of Hesse, with whom

he had not for some time been on speaking terms, “I have resolved, sir,”

said the Earl, “to attempt an assault; you may accompany us, if you

think fit, and see whether I and my men deserve what you have been

pleased to say of us.” The Prince was startled. The attempt, he said,

was hopeless; but he was ready to take his share; and, without further

discussion, he called for his horse.

Fifteen hundred English soldiers were assembled under the Earl. A

thousand more had been posted as a body of reserve, at a neighbouring

convent, under the command of Stanhope. After a winding march along the

foot of the hills, Peterborough and his little army reached the walls

of Monjuich. There they halted till daybreak. As soon as they were

descried, the enemy advanced into the outer ditch to meet them. This was

the event on which Peterborough had reckoned, and for which his men were

prepared. The English received the fire, rushed forward, leaped into the

ditch, put the Spaniards to flight, and entered the works together

with the fugitives. Before the garrison had recovered from their first

surprise, the Earl was master of the outworks, had taken several pieces

of cannon, and had thrown up a breastwork to defend his men. He

then sent off for Stanhope’s reserve. While he was waiting for this

reinforcement, news arrived that three thousand men were marching from

Barcelona towards Monjuich. He instantly rode out to take a view of

them; but no sooner had he left his troops than they were seized with a

panic. Their situation was indeed full of danger; they had been brought

into Monjuich, they scarcely knew how; their numbers were small; their

general was gone: their hearts failed them, and they were proceeding

to evacuate the fort. Peterborough received information of these

occurrences in time to stop the retreat. He galloped up to the

fugitives, addressed a few words to them, and put himself at their head.

The sound of his voice and the sight of his face restored all their

courage, and they marched back to their former position.

The Prince of Hesse had fallen in the confusion of the assault; but

everything else went well. Stanhope arrived; the detachment which had

marched out of Barcelona retreated; the heavy cannon were disembarked,

and brought to bear on the inner fortifications of Monjuich, which

speedily fell. Peterborough, with his usual generosity, rescued the

Spanish soldiers from the ferocity of his victorious army, and paid the

last honours with great pomp to his rival the Prince of Hesse.

The reduction of Monjuich was the first of a series of brilliant

exploits. Barcelona fell; and Peterborough had the glory of taking, with

a handful of men, one of the largest and strongest towns of Europe. He

had also the glory, not less dear to his chivalrous temper, of saving

the life and honour of the beautiful Duchess of Popoli, whom he met

flying with dishevelled hair from the fury of the soldiers. He availed

himself dexterously of the jealousy with which the Catalonians regarded

the inhabitants of Castile. He guaranteed to the province in the capital

of which he was now quartered all its ancient rights and liberties, and

thus succeeded in attaching the population to the Austrian cause.

The open country now declared in favour of Charles. Tarragona,

Tortosa, Gerona, Lerida, San Mateo, threw open their gates. The Spanish

Government sent the Count of Las Torres with seven thousand men to

reduce San Mateo. The Earl of Peterborough, with only twelve hundred

men, raised the siege. His officers advised him to be content with this

extraordinary success. Charles urged him to return to Barcelona; but no

remonstrances could stop such a spirit in the midst of such a career.

It was the depth of winter. The country was mountainous. The roads were

almost impassable. The men were ill-clothed. The horses were knocked up.

The retreating army was far more numerous than the pursuing army. But

difficulties and dangers vanished before the energy of Peterborough. He

pushed on, driving Las Torres before him. Nules surrendered to the mere

terror of his name; and, on the fourth of February, 1706 he arrived in

triumph at Valencia. There he learned that a body of four thousand men

was on the march to join Las Torres. He set out at dead of night from

Valencia, passed the Xucar, came unexpectedly on the encampment of the

enemy, and slaughtered, dispersed, or took the whole reinforcement. The

Valencians could scarcely believe their eyes when they saw the prisoners

brought in.

In the meantime the Courts of Madrid and Versailles, exasperated and

alarmed by the fall of Barcelona and by the revolt of the surrounding

country, determined to make a great effort. A large army, nominally

commanded by Philip, but really under the orders of Marshal Tesse,

entered Catalonia. A fleet under the Count of Toulouse, one of the

natural children of Lewis the Fourteenth, appeared before the port of

Barcelona, The city was attacked at once by sea and land. The person of

the Archduke was in considerable danger. Peterborough, at the head of

about three thousand men, marched with great rapidity from Valencia. To

give battle, with so small a force, to a great regular army under

the conduct of a Marshal of France, would have been madness. The Earl

therefore made war after the fashion of the Minas and Empecinados of our

own time. He took his post on the neighbouring mountains, harassed the

enemy with incessant alarms, cut off their stragglers, intercepted their

communications with the interior, and introduced supplies, both of men

and provisions, into the town. He saw, however, that the only hope of

the besieged was on the side of the sea. His commission from the British

Government gave him supreme power, not only over the army, but, whenever

he should be actually on board, over the navy also. He put out to sea at

night in an open boat, without communicating his design to any person.

He was picked up several leagues from the shore, by one of the ships of

the English squadron. As soon as he was on board, he announced himself

as first in command, and sent a pinnace with his orders to the Admiral.

Had these orders been given a few hours earlier, it is probable that

the whole French fleet would have been taken. As it was, the Count of

Toulouse put out to sea. The port was open. The town was relieved.

On the following night the enemy raised the siege and retreated

to Roussillon. Peterborough returned to Valencia, a place which he

preferred to every other in Spain; and Philip, who had been some weeks

absent from his wife, could endure the misery of separation no longer,

and flew to rejoin her at Madrid.

At Madrid, however, it was impossible for him or for her to remain. The

splendid success which Peterborough had obtained on the eastern coast

of the Peninsula had inspired the sluggish Galway with emulation. He

advanced into the heart of Spain. Berwick retreated. Alcantara, Ciudad

Rodrigo, and Salamanca fell, and the conquerors marched towards the

capital.

Philip was earnestly pressed by his advisers to remove the seat of

government to Burgos. The advance guard of the allied army was already

seen on the heights above Madrid. It was known that the main body was at

hand. The unfortunate Prince fled with his Queen and his household.

The royal wanderers, after travelling eight days on bad roads, under a

burning sun, and sleeping eight nights in miserable hovels, one of which

fell down and nearly crushed them both to death, reached the metropolis

of Old Castile. In the meantime the invaders had entered Madrid in

triumph, and had proclaimed the Archduke in the streets of the imperial

city. Arragon, ever jealous of the Castilian ascendency, followed the

example of Catalonia. Saragossa revolted without seeing an enemy. The

governor whom Philip had set over Carthagena betrayed his trust, and

surrendered to the Allies the best arsenal and the last ships which

Spain possessed.

Toledo had been for some time the retreat of two ambitious, turbulent

and vindicative intriguers, the Queen Dowager and Cardinal Porto

Carrero. They had long been deadly enemies. They had led the adverse

factions of Austria and France. Each had in turn domineered over the

weak and disordered mind of the late King. At length the impostures

of the priest had triumphed over the blandishments of the woman; Porto

Carrero had remained victorious; and the Queen had fled in shame and

mortification, from the Court where she had once been supreme. In her

retirement she was soon joined by him whose arts had destroyed her

influence. The Cardinal, having held power just long enough to convince

all parties of his incompetency, had been dismissed to his See, cursing

his own folly and the ingratitude of the House which he had served too

well. Common interests and common enmities reconciled the fallen rivals.

The Austrian troops were admitted into Toledo without opposition. The

Queen Dowager flung off that mournful garb which the widow of a King

of Spain wears through her whole life, and blazed forth in jewels.

The Cardinal blessed the standards of the invaders in his magnificent

cathedral, and lighted up his palace in honour of the great deliverance.

It seemed that the struggle had terminated in favour of the Archduke,

and that nothing remained for Philip but a prompt flight into the

dominions of his grandfather.

So judged those who were ignorant of the character and habits of the

Spanish people. There is no country in Europe which it is so easy

to overrun as Spain, there is no country in Europe which it is more

difficult to conquer. Nothing can be more contemptible than the regular

military resistance which Spain offers to an invader; nothing more

formidable than the energy which she puts forth when her regular

military resistance has been beaten down. Her armies have long borne too

much resemblance to mobs; but her mobs have had, in an unusual degree,

the spirit of armies. The soldier, as compared with other soldiers, is

deficient in military qualities; but the peasant has as much of those

qualities as the soldier. In no country have such strong fortresses been

taken by surprise: in no country have unfortified towns made so furious

and obstinate a resistance to great armies. War in Spain has, from

the days of the Romans, had a character of its own; it is a fire which

cannot be raked out; it burns fiercely under the embers; and long after

it has, to all seeming, been extinguished, bursts forth more violently

than ever. This was seen in the last war. Spain had no army which could

have looked in the face an equal number of French or Prussian soldiers;

but one day laid the Prussian monarchy in the dust; one day put the

crown of France at the disposal of invaders. No Jena, no Waterloo, would

have enabled Joseph to reign in quiet at Madrid.

The conduct of the Castilians throughout the War of the Succession was

most characteristic. With all the odds of number and situation on their

side, they had been ignominiously beaten. All the European dependencies

of the Spanish crown were lost. Catalonia, Arragon, and Valencia had

acknowledged the Austrian Prince. Gibraltar had been taken by a few

sailors; Barcelona stormed by a few dismounted dragoons. The invaders

had penetrated into the centre of the Peninsula, and were quartered at

Madrid and Toledo. While these events had been in progress, the nation

had scarcely given a sign of life. The rich could hardly be prevailed on

to give or to lend for the support of war; the troops had shown neither

discipline nor courage; and now at last, when it seemed that all was

lost, when it seemed that the most sanguine must relinquish all hope,

the national spirit awoke, fierce, proud, and unconquerable. The people

had been sluggish when the circumstances might well have inspired hope;

they reserved all their energy for what appeared to be a season of

despair. Castile, Leon, Andalusia, Estremadura, rose at once; every

peasant procured a firelock or a pike; the Allies were masters only of

the ground on which they trod. No soldier could wander a hundred yards

from the main body of the invading army without imminent risk of being

poniarded. The country through which the conquerors had passed to

Madrid, and which, as they thought, they had subdued, was all in arms

behind them. Their communications with Portugal were cut off. In the

meantime, money began, for the first time, to flow rapidly into the

treasury of the fugitive King. “The day before yesterday,” says the

Princess Orsini, in a letter written at this time, “the priest of

a village which contains only a hundred and twenty houses brought a

hundred and twenty pistoles to the Queen. ‘My flock,’ said he, ‘are

ashamed to send you so little; but they beg you to believe that in this

purse there are a hundred and twenty hearts faithful even to the death.’

The good man wept as he spoke; and indeed we wept too. Yesterday another

small village, in which there are only twenty houses, sent us fifty

pistoles.”

While the Castilians were everywhere arming in the cause of Philip, the

Allies were serving that cause as effectually by their mismanagement.

Galway staid at Madrid, where his soldiers indulged in such boundless

licentiousness that one half of them were in the hospitals. Charles

remained dawdling in Catalonia. Peterborough had taken Requena, and

wished to march from Valencia towards Madrid, and to effect a junction

with Galway; but the Archduke refused his consent to the plan. The

indignant general remained accordingly in his favourite city, on the

beautiful shores of the Mediterranean, reading Don Quixote, giving balls

and suppers, trying in vain to get some good sport out of the Valencia

bulls, and making love, not in vain, to the Valencian women.

At length the Archduke advanced into Castile, and ordered Peterborough

to join him. But it was too late. Berwick had already compelled

Galway to evacuate Madrid; and, when the whole force of the Allies

was collected at Guadalaxara, it was found to be decidedly inferior in

numbers to that of the enemy.

Peterborough formed a plan for regaining possession of the capital.

His plan was rejected by Charles. The patience of the sensitive and

vainglorious hero was worn out. He had none of that serenity of temper

which enabled Marlborough to act in perfect harmony with Eugene, and

to endure the vexatious interference of the Dutch deputies. He demanded

permission to leave the army. Permission was readily granted; and he set

out for Italy. That there might be some pretext for his departure, he

was commissioned by the Archduke to raise a loan in Genoa, on the credit

of the revenues of Spain.

From that moment to the end of the campaign the tide of fortune ran

strong against the Austrian cause. Berwick had placed his army between

the Allies and the frontiers of Portugal. They retreated on Valencia,

and arrived in that Province, leaving about ten thousand prisoners in

the hands of the enemy.

In January 1707, Peterborough arrived at Valencia from Italy, no longer

bearing a public character, but merely as a volunteer. His advice was

asked, and it seems to have been most judicious. He gave it as his

decided opinion that no offensive operations against Castile ought to be

undertaken. It would be easy, he said, to defend Arragon, Catalonia, and

Valencia, against Philip. The inhabitants of those parts of Spain were

attached to the cause of the Archduke; and the armies of the House of

Bourbon would be resisted by the whole population. In a short time the

enthusiasm of the Castilians might abate. The government of Philip might

commit unpopular acts. Defeats in the Netherlands might compel Lewis to

withdraw the succours which he had furnished to his grandson. Then

would be the time to strike a decisive blow. This excellent advice was

rejected. Peterborough, who had now received formal letters of recall

from England, departed before the opening of the campaign; and with him

departed the good fortune of the Allies. Scarcely any general had

ever done so much with means so small. Scarcely any general had ever

displayed equal originality and boldness. He possessed, in the highest

degree, the art of conciliating those whom he had subdued. But he was

not equally successful in winning the attachment of those with whom he

acted. He was adored by the Catalonians and Valencians; but he was hated

by the prince whom he had all but made a great king, and by the generals

whose fortune and reputation were staked on the same venture with

his own. The English Government could not understand him. He was so

eccentric that they gave him no credit for the judgment which he really

possessed. One day he took towns with horse-soldiers; then again he

turned some hundreds of infantry into cavalry at a minute’s notice. He

obtained his political intelligence chiefly by means of love affairs,

and filled his despatches with epigrams. The ministers thought that it

would be highly impolitic to intrust the conduct of the Spanish war to

so volatile and romantic a person. They therefore gave the command to

Lord Galway, an experienced veteran, a man who was in war what Moliere’s

doctors were in medicine, who thought it much more honourable to fail

according to rule, than to succeed by innovation, and who would have

been very much ashamed of himself if he had taken Monjuich by means

so strange as those which Peterborough employed. This great commander

conducted the campaign of 1707 in the most scientific manner. On the

plain of Almanza he encountered the army of the Bourbons. He drew up his

troops according to the methods prescribed by the best writers, and in

a few hours lost eighteen thousand men, a hundred and twenty standards,

all his baggage and all his artillery. Valencia and Arragon were

instantly conquered by the French, and, at the close of the year, the

mountainous province of Catalonia was the only part of Spain which still

adhered to Charles.

“Do you remember, child,” says the foolish woman in the Spectator to

her husband, “that the pigeon-house fell the very afternoon that our

careless wench spilt the salt upon the table?” “Yes, my dear,” replies

the gentleman, “and the next post brought us an account of the battle

of Almanza.” The approach of disaster in Spain had been for some time

indicated by omens much clearer than the mishap of the salt-cellar;

an ungrateful prince, an undisciplined army, a divided council, envy

triumphant over merit, a man of genius recalled, a pedant and a sluggard

intrusted with supreme command. The battle of Almanza decided the fate

of Spain. The loss was such as Marlborough or Eugene could scarcely

have retrieved, and was certainly not to be retrieved by Stanhope and

Staremberg.

Stanhope, who took the command of the English army in Catalonia, was a

man of respectable abilities, both in military and civil affairs, but

fitter, we conceive, for a second than for a first place. Lord Mahon,

with his usual candour, tells us, what we believe was not known before,

that his ancestor’s most distinguished exploit, the conquest of Minorca,

was suggested by Marlborough. Staremberg, a methodical tactician of the

German school, was sent by the emperor to command in Spain. Two languid

campaigns followed, during which neither of the hostile armies did

anything memorable, but during which both were nearly starved.

At length, in 1710, the chiefs of the Allied forces resolved to venture

on bolder measures. They began the campaign with a daring move, pushed

into Arragon, defeated the troops of Philip at Almenara, defeated

them again at Saragossa, and advanced to Madrid. The King was again a

fugitive. The Castilians sprang to arms with the same enthusiasm which

they had displayed in 1706. The conquerors found the capital a desert.

The people shut themselves up in their houses, and refused to pay any

mark of respect to the Austrian prince. It was necessary to hire a few

children to shout before him in the streets. Meanwhile, the Court

of Philip at Valladolid was thronged by nobles and prelates. Thirty

thousand people followed their King from Madrid to his new residence.

Women of rank, rather than remain behind, performed the journey on foot.

The peasants enlisted by thousands. Money, arms, and provisions, were

supplied in abundance by the zeal of the people. The country round

Madrid was infested by small parties of irregular horse. The Allies

could not send off a despatch to Arragon, or introduce a supply of

provisions into the capital. It was unsafe for the Archduke to hunt in

the immediate vicinity of the palace which he occupied.

The wish of Stanhope was to winter in Castile. But he stood alone in the

council of war; and, indeed it is not easy to understand how the Allies

could have maintained themselves, through so unpropitious a season, in

the midst of so hostile a population. Charles, whose personal safety was

the first object of the generals, was sent with an escort of cavalry to

Catalonia in November; and in December the army commenced its retreat

towards Arragon.

But the Allies had to do with a master-spirit. The King of France

had lately sent the Duke of Vendome to command in Spain. This man was

distinguished by the filthiness of his person, by the brutality of

his demeanour, by the gross buffoonery of his conversation, and by the

impudence with which he abandoned himself to the most nauseous of all

vices. His sluggishness was almost incredible. Even when engaged in a

campaign, he often passed whole days in his bed. His strange torpidity

had been the cause of some of the most serious disasters which the

armies of the House of Bourbon had sustained. But when he was roused

by any great emergency, his resources, his energy, and his presence of

mind, were such as had been found in no French general since the death

of Luxembourg.

At this crisis, Vendome was all himself. He set out from Talavera with

his troops, and pursued the retreating army of the Allies with a speed

perhaps never equalled, in such a season, and in such a country. He

marched night and day. He swam, at the head of his cavalry, the flooded

stream of Henares, and, in a few days, overtook Stanhope, who was at

Brihuega with the left wing of the Allied army. “Nobody with me,” says

the English general, “imagined that they had any foot within some days’

march of us and our misfortune is owing to the incredible diligence

which their army made.” Stanhope had but just time to send off a

messenger to the centre of the army, which was some leagues from

Brihuega, before Vendome was upon him. The town was invested on every

side. The walls were battered with cannon. A mine was sprung under one

of the gates. The English kept up a terrible fire till their powder

was spent. They then fought desperately with the bayonet against

overwhelming odds. They burned the houses which the assailants

had taken. But all was to no purpose. The British general saw that

resistance could produce only a useless carnage. He concluded a

capitulation; and his gallant little army became prisoners of war on

honourable terms.

Scarcely had Vendome signed the capitulation, when he learned that

Staremberg was marching to the relief of Stanhope. Preparations were

instantly made for a general action. On the day following that on which

the English had delivered up their arms, was fought the obstinate and

bloody fight of Villa Viciosa. Staremberg remained master of the field.

Vendome reaped all the fruits of the battle. The Allies spiked their

cannon, and retired towards Arragon. But even in Arragon they found no

place to rest. Vendome was behind them. The guerilla parties were around

them. They fled to Catalonia; but Catalonia was invaded by a French

army from Roussillon. At length the Austrian general, with six thousand

harassed and dispirited men, the remains of a great and victorious army,

took refuge in Barcelona, almost the only place in Spain which still

recognised the authority of Charles.

Philip was now much safer at Madrid than his grandfather at Paris. All

hope of conquering Spain in Spain was at an end. But in other quarters

the House of Bourbon was reduced to the last extremity. The French

armies had undergone a series of defeats in Germany, in Italy, and in

the Netherlands. An immense force, flushed with victory, and commanded

by the greatest generals of the age, was on the borders of France. Lewis

had been forced to humble himself before the conquerors. He had even

offered to abandon the cause of his grandson; and his offer had been

rejected. But a great turn in affairs was approaching.

The English administration which had commenced the war against the House

of Bourbon was an administration composed of Tories. But the war was a

Whig war. It was the favourite scheme of William, the Whig King. Lewis

had provoked it by recognising, as sovereign of England, a prince

peculiarly hateful to the Whigs. It had placed England in a position

of marked hostility to that power from which alone the Pretender could

expect efficient succour. It had joined England in the closest union

to a Protestant and republican State, to a State which had assisted in

bringing about the Revolution, and which was willing to guarantee the

execution of the Act of Settlement. Marlborough and Godolphin found that

they were more zealously supported by their old opponents than by

their old associates. Those ministers who were zealous for the war

were gradually converted to Whiggism. The rest dropped off, and were

succeeded by Whigs. Cowper became Chancellor. Sunderland, in spite of

the very just antipathy of Anne, was made Secretary of State. On the

death of the Prince of Denmark a more extensive change took place.

Wharton became Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and Somers, President of the

Council. At length the administration was wholly in the hands of the Low

Church party.

In the year 1710 a violent change took place. The Queen had always been

a Tory at heart. Her religious feelings were all on the side of the

Established Church. Her family feelings pleaded in favour of her exiled

brother. Her selfish feelings disposed her to favour the zealots of

prerogative. The affection which she felt for the Duchess of Marlborough

was the great security of the Whigs. That affection had at length turned

to deadly aversion. While the great party which had long swayed the

destinies of Europe was undermined by bedchamber women at St. James’s,

a violent storm gathered in the country. A foolish parson had preached

a foolish sermon against the principles of the Revolution. The wisest

members of the Government were for letting the man alone. But Godolphin,

inflamed with all the zeal of a new-made Whig, and exasperated by

a nickname which was applied to him in this unfortunate discourse,

insisted that the preacher should be impeached. The exhortations of the

mild and sagacious Somers were disregarded. The impeachment was brought;

the doctor was convicted; and the accusers were ruined. The clergy came

to the rescue of the persecuted clergyman. The country gentlemen came

to the rescue of the clergy. A display of Tory feelings, such as England

had not witnessed since the closing years of Charles the Second’s reign,

appalled the ministers and gave boldness to the Queen. She turned

out the Whigs, called Harley and St. John to power, and dissolved the

Parliament. The elections went strongly against the late Government.

Stanhope, who had in his absence, been put in nomination for

Westminster, was defeated by a Tory candidate. The new ministers,

finding themselves masters of the new Parliament, were induced by the

strongest motives to conclude a peace with France. The whole system of

alliance in which the country was engaged was a Whig system. The general

by whom the English armies had constantly been led to victory, and for

whom it was impossible to find a substitute, was now whatever he might

formerly have been, a Whig general. If Marlborough were discarded it was

probable that some great disaster would follow. Yet if he were to retain

his command, every great action which he might perform would raise the

credit of the party in opposition.

A peace was therefore concluded between England and the Princes of

the House of Bourbon. Of that peace Lord Mahon speaks in terms of the

severest reprehension. He is, indeed, an excellent Whig of the time of

the first Lord Stanhope. “I cannot but pause for a moment,” says he, “to

observe how much the course of a century has inverted the meaning of our

party nicknames, how much a modern Tory resembles a Whig of Queen Anne’s

reign, and a Tory of Queen Anne’s reign a modern Whig.”

We grant one half of Lord Mahon’s proposition: from the other half

we altogether dissent. We allow that a modern Tory resembles, in many

things, a Whig of Queen Anne’s reign. It is natural that such should be

the case. The worst things of one age often resemble the best things of

another. A modern shopkeeper’s house is as well furnished as the house

of a considerable merchant in Anne’s reign. Very plain people now wear

finer cloth than Beau Fielding or Beau Edgeworth could have procured in

Queen Anne’s reign. We would rather trust to the apothecary of a modern

village than to the physician of a large town in Anne’s reign. A modern

boarding-school miss could tell the most learned professor of Anne’s

reign some things in geography, astronomy, and chemistry, which would

surprise him.

The science of government is an experimental science; and therefore it

is, like all other experimental sciences, a progressive science. Lord

Mahon would have been a very good Whig in the days of Harley. But

Harley, whom Lord Mahon censures so severely, was very Whiggish when

compared even with Clarendon; and Clarendon was quite a democrat when

compared with Lord Burleigh. If Lord Mahon lives, as we hope he will,

fifty years longer, we have no doubt that, as he now boasts of the

resemblance which the Tories of our time bear to the Whigs of the

Revolution, he will then boast of the resemblance borne by the Tories of

1882 to those immortal patriots, the Whigs of the Reform Bill.

Society, we believe, is constantly advancing in knowledge. The tail is

now where the head was some generations ago. But the head and the tail

still keep their distance. A nurse of this century is as wise as a

justice of the quorum and custalorum in Shallow’s time. The wooden spoon

of this year would puzzle a senior wrangler of the reign of George the

Second. A boy from the National School reads and spells better than half

the knights of the shire in the October Club. But there is still as wide

a difference as ever between justices and nurses, senior wranglers and

wooden spoons, members of Parliament and children at charity schools.

In the same way, though a Tory may now be very like what a Whig was a

hundred and twenty years ago, the Whig is as much in advance of the Tory

as ever. The stag, in the Treatise on the Bathos, who “feared his hind

feet would o’ertake the fore,” was not more mistaken than Lord Mahon,

if he thinks that he has really come up with the Whigs. The absolute

position of the parties has been altered; the relative position remains

unchanged. Through the whole of that great movement, which began before

these party-names existed, and which will continue after they have

become obsolete, through the whole of that great movement of which the

Charter of John, the institution of the House of Commons, the extinction

of Villanage, the separation from the see of Rome, the expulsion of the

Stuarts, the reform of the Representative System, are successive stages,

there have been, under some name or other, two sets of men, those who

were before their age, and those who were behind it, those who were the

wisest among their contemporaries, and those who gloried in being no

wiser than their great-grandfathers. It is dreadful to think, that, in

due time, the last of those who straggle in the rear of the great march

will occupy the place now occupied by the advanced guard. The Tory

Parliament of 1710 would have passed for a most liberal Parliament

in the days of Elizabeth; and there are at present few members of the

Conservative Club who would not have been fully qualified to sit with

Halifax and Somers at the Kit-cat.

Though, therefore, we admit that a modern Tory bears some resemblance

to a Whig of Queen Anne’s reign, we can by no means admit that a Tory of

Anne’s reign resembled a modern Whig. Have the modern Whigs passed laws

for the purpose of closing the entrance of the House of Commons against

the new interests created by trade? Do the modern Whigs hold the

doctrine of divine right? Have the modern Whigs laboured to exclude all

Dissenters from office and power? The modern Whigs are, indeed, at the

present moment, like the Tories of 1712, desirous of peace, and of close

union with France. But is there no difference between the France of

1712 and the France of 1832? Is France now the stronghold of the “Popish

tyranny” and the “arbitrary power” against which our ancestors fought

and prayed? Lord Mahon will find, we think, that his parallel is, in

all essential circumstances, as incorrect as that which Fluellen drew

between Macedon and Monmouth, or as that which an ingenious Tory lately

discovered between Archbishop Williams and Archbishop Vernon.

We agree with Lord Mahon in thinking highly of the Whigs of Queen Anne’s

reign. But that part of their conduct which he selects for especial

praise is precisely the part which we think most objectionable. We

revere them as the great champions of political and of intellectual

liberty. It is true that, when raised to power, they were not exempt

from the faults which power naturally engenders. It is true that they

were men born in the seventeenth century, and that they were therefore

ignorant of many truths which are familiar to the men of the nineteenth

century. But they were, what the reformers of the Church were before

them, and what the reformers of the House of Commons have been since,

the leaders of their species in a right direction. It is true that they

did not allow to political discussion that latitude which to us appears

reasonable and safe; but to them we owe the removal of the Censorship.

It is true that they did not carry the principle of religious liberty to

its full extent; but to them we owe the Toleration Act.

Though, however, we think that the Whigs of Anne’s reign were, as a

body, far superior in wisdom and public virtue to their contemporaries

the Tories, we by no means hold ourselves bound to defend all the

measures of our favourite party. A life of action, if it is to be

useful, must be a life of compromise. But speculation admits of no

compromise. A public man is often under the necessity of consenting

to measures which he dislikes, lest he should endanger the success of

measures which he thinks of vital importance. But the historian lies

under no such necessity. On the contrary, it is one of his most sacred

duties to point out clearly the errors of those whose general conduct he

admires.

It seems to us, then, that, on the great question which divided England

during the last four years of Anne’s reign, the Tories were in the

right, and the Whigs in the wrong. That question was, whether England

ought to conclude peace without exacting from Philip a resignation of

the Spanish crown?

No parliamentary struggle, from the time of the Exclusion Bill to the

time of the Reform Bill, has been so violent as that which took place

between the authors of the Treaty of Utrecht and the War Party. The

Commons were for peace; the Lords were for vigorous hostilities. The

Queen was compelled to choose which of her two highest prerogatives

she would exercise, whether she would create Peers, or dissolve the

Parliament.

The ties of party superseded the ties of neighbourhood and of blood. The

members of the hostile factions would scarcely speak to each other, or

bow to each other. The women appeared at the theatres bearing the badges

of their political sect. The schism extended to the most remote counties

of England. Talents, such as had seldom before been displayed in

political controversy, were enlisted in the service of the hostile

parties. On one side was Steele, gay, lively, drunk with animal spirits

and with factious animosity, and Addison, with his polished satire, his

inexhaustible fertility of fancy, and his graceful simplicity of style.

In the front of the opposite ranks appeared a darker and fiercer spirit,

the apostate politician, the ribald priest, the perjured lover, a heart

burning with hatred against the whole human race, a mind richly stored

with images from the dung-hill and the lazar-house. The ministers

triumphed, and the peace was concluded. Then came the reaction. A new

sovereign ascended the throne. The Whigs enjoyed the confidence of the

King and of the Parliament. The unjust severity with which the Tories

had treated Marlborough and Walpole was more than retaliated. Harley and

Prior were thrown into prison; Bolingbroke and Ormond were compelled to

take refuge in a foreign land. The wounds inflicted in this desperate

conflict continued to rankle for many years. It was long before the

members of either party could discuss the question of the peace of

Utrecht with calmness and impartiality. That the Whig ministers had sold

us to the Dutch; that the Tory ministers had sold us to the French; that

the war had been carried on only to fill the pockets of Marlborough;

that the peace had been concluded only to facilitate the return of the

Pretender; these imputations and many others, utterly ungrounded, or

grossly exaggerated, were hurled backward and forward by the political

disputants of the last century. In our time the question may be

discussed without irritation. We will state, as concisely as possible,

the reasons which have led us to the conclusion at which we have

arrived.

The dangers which were to be apprehended from the peace were two;

first, the danger that Philip might be induced, by feelings of private

affection, to act in strict concert with the elder branch of his house,

to favour the French trade at the expense of England, and to side with

the French Government in future wars; secondly, the danger that the

posterity of the Duke of Burgundy might become extinct, that Philip

might become heir by blood to the French crown, and that thus two great

monarchies might be united under one sovereign.

The first danger appears to us altogether chimerical. Family affection

has seldom produced much effect on the policy of princes. The state of

Europe at the time of the peace of Utrecht proved that in politics

the ties of interest are much stronger than those of consanguinity or

affinity. The Elector of Bavaria had been driven from his dominions by

his father-in-law; Victor Amadeus was in arms against his sons-in-law;

Anne was seated on a throne from which she had assisted to push a

most indulgent father. It is true that Philip had been accustomed from

childhood to regard his grandfather with profound veneration. It was

probable, therefore, that the influence of Lewis at Madrid would be

very great. But Lewis was more than seventy years old; he could not live

long; his heir was an infant in the cradle. There was surely no reason

to think that the policy of the King of Spain would be swayed by his

regard for a nephew whom he had never seen.

In fact, soon after the peace, the two branches of the House of Bourbon

began to quarrel. A close alliance was formed between Philip and

Charles, lately competitors for the Castilian crown. A Spanish princess,

betrothed to the King of France, was sent back in the most insulting

manner to her native country; and a decree was put forth by the Court of

Madrid commanding every Frenchman to leave Spain. It is true that, fifty

years after the peace of Utrecht, an alliance of peculiar strictness was

formed between the French and Spanish Governments. But both Governments

were actuated on that occasion, not by domestic affection, but by common

interests and common enmities. Their compact, though called the Family

Compact, was as purely a political compact as the league of Cambrai or

the league of Pilnitz.

The second danger was that Philip might have succeeded to the crown of

his native country. This did not happen; but it might have happened; and

at one time it seemed very likely to happen. A sickly child alone stood

between the King of Spain and the heritage of Lewis the Fourteenth.

Philip, it is true, solemnly renounced his claim to the French crown.

But the manner in which he had obtained possession of the Spanish crown

had proved the inefficacy of such renunciations. The French lawyers

declared Philip’s renunciation null, as being inconsistent with the

fundamental law of the realm. The French people would probably have

sided with him whom they would have considered as the rightful heir.

Saint Simon, though much less zealous for hereditary monarchy than most

of his countrymen, and though strongly attached to the Regent, declared,

in the presence of that prince, that he never would support the claims

of the House of Orleans against those of the King of Spain. “If

such,” he said, “be my feelings, what must be the feelings of others?” Bolingbroke, it is certain, was fully convinced that the renunciation

was worth no more than the paper on which it was written, and demanded

it only for the purpose of blinding the English Parliament and people.

Yet, though it was at one time probable that the posterity of the Duke

of Burgundy would become extinct, and though it is almost certain that,

if the posterity of the Duke of Burgundy had become extinct, Philip

would have successfully preferred his claim to the crown of France, we

still defend the principle of the Treaty of Utrecht. In the first place,

Charles had, soon after the battle of Villa-Viciosa, inherited, by the

death of his elder brother, all the dominions of the House of Austria.

Surely, if to these dominions he had added the whole monarchy of Spain,

the balance of power would have been seriously endangered. The union

of the Austrian dominions and Spain would not, it is true, have been

so alarming an event as the union of France and Spain. But Charles was

actually Emperor. Philip was not, and never might be, King of France.

The certainty of the less evil might well be set against the chance of

the greater evil.

But, in fact, we do not believe that Spain would long have remained

under the government either of an Emperor or of a King of France. The

character of the Spanish people was a better security to the nations of

Europe than any will, any instrument of renunciation, or any treaty. The

same energy which the people of Castile had put forth when Madrid was

occupied by the Allied armies, they would have again put forth as soon

as it appeared that their country was about to become a French province.

Though they were no longer masters abroad, they were by no means

disposed to see foreigners set over them at home. If Philip had

attempted to govern Spain by mandates from Versailles, a second Grand

Alliance would easily have effected what the first had failed to

accomplish. The Spanish nation would have rallied against him as

zealously as it had before rallied round him. And of this he seems to

have been fully aware. For many years the favourite hope of his heart

was that he might ascend the throne of his grandfather; but he seems

never to have thought it possible that he could reign at once in the

country of his adoption and in the country of his birth.

These were the dangers of the peace; and they seem to us to be of no

very formidable kind. Against these dangers are to be set off the evils

of war and the risk of failure. The evils of the war, the waste of life,

the suspension of trade, the expenditure of wealth, the accumulation of

debt, require no illustration. The chances of failure it is difficult at

this distance of time to calculate with accuracy. But we think that an

estimate approximating to the truth may, without much difficulty, be

formed. The Allies had been victorious in Germany, Italy, and Flanders.

It was by no means improbable that they might fight their way into the

very heart of France. But at no time since the commencement of the war

had their prospects been so dark in that country which was the very

object of the struggle. In Spain they held only a few square leagues.

The temper of the great majority of the nation was decidedly hostile to

them. If they had persisted, if they had obtained success equal to

their highest expectations, if they had gained a series of victories

as splendid as those of Blenheim and Ramilies, if Paris had fallen,

if Lewis had been a prisoner, we still doubt whether they would have

accomplished their object. They would still have had to carry on

interminable hostilities against the whole population of a country which

affords peculiar facilities to irregular warfare, and in which invading

armies suffer more from famine than from the sword.

We are, therefore, for the peace of Utrecht. We are indeed no admirers

of the statesmen who concluded that peace. Harley, we believe, was a

solemn trifler, St. John a brilliant knave. The great body of their

followers consisted of the country clergy and the country gentry;

two classes of men who were then inferior in intelligence to decent

shopkeepers or farmers of our time. Parson Barnabas, Parson Trulliber,

Sir Wilful Witwould, Sir Francis Wronghead, Squire Western, Squire

Sullen, such were the people who composed the main strength of the Tory

party during the sixty years which followed the Revolution. It is true

that the means by which the Tories came into power in 1710 were most

disreputable. It is true that the manner in which they used their power

was often unjust and cruel. It is true that, in order to bring

about their favourite project of peace, they resorted to slander and

deception, without the slightest scruple. It is true that they passed

off on the British nation a renunciation which they knew to be invalid.

It is true that they gave up the Catalans to the vengeance of Philip,

in a manner inconsistent with humanity and national honour. But on the

great question of Peace or War, we cannot but think that, though

their motives may have been selfish and malevolent, their decision was

beneficial to the State.

But we have already exceeded our limits. It remains only for us to bid

Lord Mahon heartily farewell, and to assure him that, whatever dislike

we may feel for his political opinions, we shall always meet him with

pleasure on the neutral ground of literature.