Anne had no sooner come to the throne than war broke out with France.
It had its origin in the previous reign. William III had cared little
for England compared with his native Holland, whose interests always
had the first place in his heart. He had spent his life battling to
preserve the independence of the Dutch republic and fighting Louis XIV
of France, who was determined, if possible, to annex the Netherlands,
including Holland, to his own dominions (S502).
During the latter part of William's reign the French King seemed
likely to be able to accomplish his purpose. The King of Spain, who
had no children, was in feeble health, and at his death it was
probable that Louis XIV's grandson, Philip of Anjou, would receive the
crown. If that happened, Louis XIV, who was then the most powerful
prince in Europe, would obtain the control of the Spanish dominions,
which, besides Spain, comprise a large part of the Netherlands,[1]
parts of Italy, and immense provinces in South America. The
possession of such an empire would make Louis irresistible in Europe,
and the little, free Protestant states of Holland could not hope to
stand before him.
[1] The whole of the Netherlands at one time belonged to Spain, but
the northern part, or Holland, had succeeded in establishing its
independence, and was protected on the southern frontier by a line of
fortified towns.
Not long afterwards, the King of Spain died and bequeathed the crown
to Philip of Anjou. When Philip left Paris for Madrid, Louis XIV
exultingly exclaimed, "The Pyrenees no longer exist." That was simply
his short way of saying, Now France and Spain are made one, and
FRANCE is that one.[2]
[2] When Philip of Anjou went to Spain, Louis XIV, by letters patent,
conditionally reserved the succession to the Spanish throne to France,
thus virtually uniting the two countries, so that the Pyrenees
Mountains would no longer have any political meaning as a boundary
between the two countries.
Louis at once put French garrisons in the border towns of the Spanish
Netherlands, and he thus had a force ready at any moment to march
across the frontier into Holland. Finally, on the death of the royal
refugee, James II (S9491), which occurred shortly before King
William's death, Louis XIV publicly acknowledged the exiled monarch's
son, James Edward, the so-called "Old Pretender" (SS490, 491), as
rightful sovereign of England, Scotland, and Ireland.
This effectually roused the English people; they were prepared for
hostilities when William's sudden death occurred (S504). Immediately
after Anne came to the throne (1702) war with France was declared, and
since it had grown out of Louis's designs on the crown of Spain, it
was called the "War of the Spanish Succession."
The contest was begun by England, mainly to prevent the French King
from carrying out his threat of placing the so-called "Pretender," son
of the late James II, on the English throne and so overturning the
Bill of Rights (S497) and the Act of Settlement (S497), and thereby
restoring the country to the Roman Catholic Stuarts. Later, the war
came to have two other important objects. The first of these was to
defend Holland, now a most valuable ally; the second was to protect
the colonies of Virginia and New England against the power of France,
which threatened, through its own American colonies and through the
extensive Spanish possessions it expected to acquire, to get control
of the whole of the New World.[1]
[1] At this time England had twelve American colonies extending from
New England to South Carolina, inclusive, with part of Newfoundland.
France and Spain claimed all the rest of the continent.
Thus England had three objects at stake:
(1) The maintenance of Protestant government at home.
(2) The maintenance of the Protestant power of Holland.
(3) The retention of a large part of the American continent.
For this reason the War of the Spanish Succession may be regarded as
the beginning of a second Hundred Years' War between England and
France (S237),[2] one destined to decide which was to build up the
great empire of the future in the western hemisphere.[3]
[2] During the next eighty years fighting was going on between England
and France, directly or indirectly, for a great part of the time.
[3] Seeley's "Expansion of England."
509. Marlborough; Blenheim, Gibraltar, and Other Victories
(1702-1709).
John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough (S491), commanded the English and
Dutch forces, and had for his ally Prince Eugene of Savoy, who led the
German armies. The Duke, who was known in the enemy's camps by the
flattering name of "the handsome Englishman," had risen from
obscurity. He owed the beginning of his success to his good looks and
a court intrigue. In politics he sympathized chiefly with the Tories
(S479), but his interests in the war led him to support the Whigs
(S479).
He was avaricious, unscrupulous, and teacherous. James II trusted
him, and he deceived him and went over to William (S491); William
trusted him, and he deceived him and opened a treasonable
correspondence with the dethroned James; Anne trusted him, and he
would undoubtedly have betrayed her if the so-called "Pretender"
(SS490, 491) had been able to bid high enough, or if he could have
shown him that his cause was likely to be successful. In his greed
for money the Duke hesitated at nothing; he took bribes from army
contractors, and robbed his soldiers of their pay.[1]
[1] See Hallam, Macaulay; and Thackeray's "Henry Esmond."
As a soldier, Marlborough had no equal. Voltaire says of him with
truth that "he never besieged a fortress which he did not take, nor
fought a battle which he did not win." This man, at once so able and
so false, to whom war was a private speculation rather than a contest
for right or principle, now opened the campaign. He captured those
fortresses in the Spanish Netherlands which Louis XIV had garrisoned
with French troops to menace Holland, but he could not induce the
enemy to rish a battle in the open field.
At length, Marlborough, by a brilliant movement (1704), changed the
scene of the war from the Netherlands to Bavaria in southern Germany.
There, at the little village of Blenheim,[2] he, with Prince Eugene,
gained a victory over the French which saved Germany from the power of
Louis XIV. (See map opposite.) England, out of gratitude for the
humiliation of her powerful enemy, presented the Duke with the ancient
royal Park of Woodstock, near Oxford, and built for him the palace of
Blenheim, which the architect called "the biggest house for the
biggest man in England." It is still occupied by descendants of the
Duke's family. A few days before the battle of Blenheim, a powerful
English fleet had attacked and taken Gibraltar (1704). England thus
gained and still holds the command of the great inland sea of the
Mediterranean. In the course of the next five years Marlborough
fought three great battles,[3] by which he drove the French out of the
Netherlands once for all, and finally beat them on a hotly contested
field in northern France. The power of Louis XIV was now so far
broken that England no longer felt any fear that he would overcome her
colonies in America (S508).
[2] Blenheim: The palace grounds are nearly twelve miles in
circumference. The Marlborough family hold Blenheim on condition that
they present a flag every year (August 2) to the English sovereign at
Windsor Castle.
[3] Ramillies (1706); Oudenarde (1708); Malplaquet (1709).