LEOPOLD I. AND THE SPANISH SUCCESSION.
From 1697 to 1710.
The Spanish Succession.--The Impotence of Charles II.--Appeal to the
Pope.--His Decision.--Death of Charles II.--Accession of Philip
V.--Indignation of Austria.--The outbreak of War.--Charles III.
crowned.--Insurrection in Hungary.--Defection of Bavaria.--The Battle of
Blenheim.--Death of Leopold I.--Eleonora.--Accession of Joseph
I.--Charles XII. of Sweden.--Charles III. in Spain.--Battle of
Malplaquet.--Charles at Barcelona.--Charles at Madrid.
Charles II., King of Spain, was one of the most impotent of men, in both
body and mind. The law of hereditary descent had placed this semi-idiot
upon the throne of Spain to control the destinies of twenty millions of
people. The same law, in the event of his death without heirs, would
carry the crown across the Pyrenees to a little boy in the palace of
Versailles, or two thousand miles, to the banks of the Danube, to
another little boy in the gardens of Vienna. Louis XIV. claimed the
Spanish scepter in behalf of his wife, the Spanish princess Maria
Theresa, and her son. Leopold claimed it in behalf of his deceased wife,
Margaret, and her child. For many years before the death of Philip II.
the envoys of France and Austria crowded the court of Spain, employing
all the arts of intrigue and bribery to forward the interests of their
several sovereigns. The different courts of Europe espoused the claims
of the one party or the other, accordingly as their interests would be
promoted by the aggrandizement of the house of Bourbon or the house of
Hapsburg.
Louis XIV. prepared to strike a sudden blow by gathering an army of one
hundred thousand men in his fortresses near the Spanish frontier, in
establishing immense magazines of military stores, and in filling the
adjacent harbors with ships of war. The sagacious French monarch had
secured the coöperation of the pope, and of some of the most influential
Jesuits who surrounded the sick and dying monarch. Charles II. had long
been harassed by the importunities of both parties that he should give
the influence of his voice in the decision. Tortured by the incessant
vacillations of his own mind, he was at last influenced, by the
suggestions of his spiritual advisers, to refer the question to the
pope. He accordingly sent an embassage to the pontiff with a letter
soliciting counsel.
"Having no children," he observed, "and being obliged to appoint an heir
to the Spanish crown from a foreign family, we find such great obscurity
in the law of succession, that we are unable to form a settled
determination. Strict justice is our aim; and, to be able to decide with
that justice, we have offered up constant prayers to God. We are anxious
to act rightly, and we have recourse to your holiness, as to an
infallible guide, intreating you to consult with the cardinals and
divines, and, after having attentively examined the testaments of our
ancestors, to decide according to the rules of right and equity."
Pope Innocent XII. was already prepared for this appeal, and was engaged
to act as the agent of the French court. The hoary-headed pontiff, with
one foot in the grave, affected the character of great honesty and
impartiality. He required forty days to examine the important case, and
to seek divine assistance. He then returned the following answer,
admirably adapted to influence a weak and superstitious prince:
"Being myself," he wrote, "in a situation similar to that of his
Catholic majesty, the King of Spain, on the point of appearing at the
judgment-seat of Christ, and rendering an account to the sovereign
pastor of the flock which has been intrusted to my care, I am bound to
give such advice as will not reproach my conscience on the day of
judgment. Your majesty ought not to put the interests of the house of
Austria in competition with those of eternity. Neither should you be
ignorant that the French claimants are the rightful heirs of the crown,
and no member of the Austrian family has the smallest legitimate
pretension. It is therefore your duty to omit no precaution, which your
wisdom can suggest, to render justice where justice is due, and to
secure, by every means in your power, the undivided succession of the
Spanish monarchy to the French claimants."
Charles, as fickle as the wind, still remained undecided, and his
anxieties preying upon his feeble frame, already exhausted by disease,
caused him rapidly to decline. He was now confined to his chamber and
his bed, and his death was hourly expected. He hated the French, and all
his sympathies were with Austria. Some priests entered his chamber,
professedly to perform the pompous and sepulchral service of the church
of Rome for the dying. In this hour of languor, and in the prospect of
immediate death, they assailed the imbecile monarch with all the terrors
of superstition. They depicted the responsibility which he would incur
should he entail on the kingdom the woes of a disputed succession; they
assured him that he could not, without unpardonable guilt, reject the
decision of the holy father of the Church; and growing more eager and
excited, they denounced upon him the vengeance of Almighty God, if he
did not bequeath the crown, now falling from his brow, to the Bourbons
of France.
The dying, half-delirious king, appalled by the terrors of eternal
damnation, yielded helplessly to their demands. A will was already
prepared awaiting his signature. With a hand trembling in death, the
king attached to it his name; but as he did so, he burst into tears,
exclaiming, "I am already nothing." It was supposed that he could then
survive but a few hours. Contrary to all expectation he revived, and
expressed the keenest indignation and anguish that he had been thus
beguiled to decide against Austria, and in favor of France. He even sent
a courier to the emperor, announcing his determination to decide in
favor of the Austrian claimant. The flickering flame of life, thus
revived for a moment, glimmered again in the socket and expired. The
wretched king died the 1st of November, 1699, in the fortieth year of
his age, and the thirty-sixth of his reign.
On the day of his death a council of State was convened, and the will,
the very existence of which was generally unknown, was read. It declared
the Dauphin of France, son of the Spanish princess Maria Theresa, to be
the successor to all the Spanish dominions; and required all subjects
and vassals of Spain to acknowledge him. The Austrian party were
astounded at this revelation. The French party were prepared to receive
it without any surprise. The son of Maria Theresa was dead, and the
crown consequently passed to her grandson Philip. Louis XIV. immediately
acknowledged his title, when he was proclaimed king, and took quiet
possession of the throne of Spain on the 24th of November, 1700, as
Philip V.
It was by such fraud that the Bourbons of France attained the succession
to the Spanish crown; a fraud as palpable as was ever committed; for
Maria Theresa had renounced all her rights to the throne; this
renunciation had been confirmed by the will of her father Philip IV.,
sanctioned by the Cortes of Spain, and solemnly ratified by her husband,
Louis XIV. Such is "legitimacy--the divine right of kings." All the
great powers of Europe, excepting the emperor, promptly acknowledged the
title of Philip V.
Leopold, enraged beyond measure, dispatched envoys to rouse the empire,
and made the most formidable preparations for war. A force of eighty
thousand men was soon assembled. The war commenced in Italy. Leopold
sent down his German troops through the defiles of the Tyrol, and, in
the valley of the Adige, they encountered the combined armies of France,
Spain and Italy. Prince Eugene, who had already acquired great renown in
the wars against the Turks, though by birth a French noble, had long
been in the Austrian service, and led the Austrian troops. William, of
England, jealous of the encroachments of Louis XIV., and leading with
him the States of Holland, formed an alliance with Austria. This was
pretty equally dividing the military power of Europe, and a war of
course ensued, almost unparalleled in its sanguinary ferocity. The
English nation supported the monarch; the House of Lords, in an address
to the king, declared that "his majesty, his subjects and his allies,
could never be secure till the house of Austria should be restored to
its rights, and the invader of the Spanish monarchy brought to reason."
Forty thousand sailors and forty thousand land troops were promptly
voted for the war.
William died on the 16th of March, in consequence of a fall from his
horse, and was succeeded by Anne, daughter of James II. She was,
however, but nominally the sovereign. The infamously renowned Duke of
Marlborough became the real monarch, and with great skill and energy
prosecuted the eleven years' war which ensued, which is known in history
as the War of the Spanish Succession. For many months the conflict raged
with the usual fluctuations, the Austrian forces being commanded on the
Rhine by the Duke of Marlborough, and in Italy by Prince Eugene.
Portugal soon joined the Austrian alliance, and Philip V. and the French
becoming unpopular in Spain, a small party rose there, advocating the
claims of the house of Austria. Thus supported, Leopold, at Vienna,
declared his son Charles King of Spain, and crowned him as such in
Vienna. By the aid of the English fleet he passed from Holland to
England, and thence to Lisbon, where a powerful army was assembled to
invade Spain, wrest the crown from Philip, and place it upon the brow of
Charles III.
And now Leopold began to reap the bitter consequences of his atrocious
conduct in Hungary. The Hungarian nobles embraced this opportunity, when
the imperial armies were fully engaged, to rise in a new and formidable
invasion. Francis Ragotsky, a Transylvanian prince, led in the heroic
enterprise. He was of one of the noblest and wealthiest families of the
realm, and was goaded to action by the bitterest wrongs. His grandfather
and uncle had been beheaded; his father robbed of his property and his
rank; his cousin doomed to perpetual imprisonment; his father-in-law
proscribed, and his mother driven into exile. The French court
immediately opened a secret correspondence with Ragotsky, promising him
large supplies of men and money, and encouraging him with hopes of the
coöperation of the Turks. Ragotsky secretly assembled a band of
determined followers, in the savage solitudes of the Carpathian
mountains, and suddenly descended into the plains of Hungary, at the
head of his wild followers, calling upon his countrymen to rise and
shake off the yoke of the detested Austrian. Adherents rapidly gathered
around his standard; several fortresses fell into his hands, and he soon
found himself at the head of twenty thousand well armed troops. The
flame of insurrection spread, with electric rapidity, through all
Hungary and Transylvania.
The tyrant Leopold, as he heard these unexpected tidings, was struck
with consternation. He sent all the troops he could collect to oppose
the patriots, but they could make no impression upon an indignant nation
in arms. He then, in his panic, attempted negotiation. But the
Hungarians demanded terms both reasonable and honorable, and to neither
of these could the emperor possibly submit. They required that the
monarchy should no longer be hereditary, but elective, according to
immemorial usage; that the Hungarians should have the right to resist
_illegal_ power without the charge of treason; that foreign officers and
garrisons should be removed from the kingdom; that the Protestants
should be reëstablished in the free exercise of their religion, and that
their confiscated estates should be restored. The despot could not
listen for one moment to requirements so just; and appalled by the
advance of the patriots toward Vienna, he recalled the troops from
Italy.
About the same time the Duke of Bavaria, disgusted with the arrogance
and the despotism of Leopold, renounced allegiance to the emperor,
entered into an alliance with the French, and at the head of forty
thousand troops, French and Bavarians, commenced the invasion of Austria
from the west. Both Eugene and Marlborough hastened to the rescue of the
emperor. Combining their forces, with awful slaughter they mowed down
the French and Bavarians at Blenheim, and then overran all Bavaria. The
elector fled with the mutilated remnants of his army to France. The
conquerors seized all the fortresses, all the guns and ammunition;
disbanded the Bavarian troops, took possession of the revenues of the
kingdom, and assigned to the heart-broken wife of the duke a humble
residence in the dismantled capital of the duchy.
The signal victory of Blenheim enabled Leopold to concentrate his
energies upon Hungary. It was now winter, and the belligerents, during
these stormy months, were active in making preparations for the campaign
of the spring. But Leopold's hour was now tolled. That summons came
which prince and peasant must alike obey, and the emperor, after a few
months of languor and pain, on the 5th of May, 1705, passed away to that
tribunal where each must answer for every deed done in the body. He was
sixty-five years of age, and had occupied the throne forty-six years.
This is the longest reign recorded in the Austrian annals, excepting
that of Frederic III.
The reign of Leopold was eventful and woeful. It was almost one
continued scene of carnage. In his character there was a singular
blending of the good and the bad. In what is usually called moral
character he was irreproachable. He was a faithful husband, a kind
father, and had no taste for any sensual pleasures. In his natural
disposition he was melancholy, and so exceedingly reserved, that he
lived in his palace almost the life of a recluse. Though he was called
the most learned prince of his age, a Jesuitical education had so
poisoned and debauched his mind, that while perpetrating the most
grievous crimes of perfidy and cruelty, he seemed sincerely to feel that
he was doing God service. His persecution of the Protestants was
persistent, relentless and horrible; while at the same time he was
scrupulous in his devotions, never allowing the cares of business to
interfere with the prescribed duties of the Church. _The Church_, the
human church of popes, cardinals, bishops and priests, was his guide,
not the _divine Bible_. Hence his darkness of mind and his crimes. Pope
Innocent XI. deemed him worthy of canonization. But an indignant world
must in justice inscribe upon his tomb, "Tyrant and Persecutor."
He was three times married; first, to Margaret, daughter of Philip IV.
of Spain; again, to Claudia, daughter of Ferdinand of Tyrol; and a third
time, to Eleonora, daughter of Philip, Elector Palatine. The character
and history of his third wife are peculiarly illustrative of the kind of
religion inculcated in that day, and of the beautiful spirit of piety
often exemplified in the midst of melancholy errors.
In the castle of her father, Eleonora was taught, by priests and nuns,
that God was only acceptably worshiped by self-sacrifice and
mortification. The devout child longed for the love of God more than for
any thing else. Guided by the teachings of those who, however sincere,
certainly misunderstood the spirit of the gospel, she deprived herself
of every innocent gratification, and practiced upon her fragile frame
all the severities of an anchorite. She had been taught that celibacy
was a virtue peculiarly acceptable to God, and resolutely declined all
solicitations for her hand.
The emperor, after the death of his first wife, sought Eleonora as his
bride. It was the most brilliant match Europe could offer. Eleonora,
from religious scruples, rejected the offer, notwithstanding all the
importunities of her parents, who could not feel reconciled to the loss
of so splendid an alliance. The devout maiden, in the conflict, exposed
herself, bonnet-less, to sun and wind, that she might render herself
unattractive, tanned, sun burnt, and freckled, so that the emperor might
not desire her. She succeeded in repelling the suit, and the emperor
married Claudia of the Tyrol. The court of the Elector Palatine was
brilliant in opulence and gayety. Eleonora was compelled to mingle with
the festive throng in the scenes of pomp and splendor; but her thoughts,
her affections, were elsewhere, and all the vanities of princely life
had no influence in leading her heart from God. She passed several
hours, every day, in devotional reading and prayer. She kept a very
careful register of her thoughts and actions, scrutinizing and
condemning with unsparing severity every questionable emotion. Every
sick bed of the poor peasants around, she visited with sympathy and as a
tender nurse. She groped her way into the glooms of prison dungeons to
convey solace to the prisoner. She wrought ornaments for the Church, and
toiled, even to weariness and exhaustion, in making garments for the
poor.
Claudia in three years died, and the emperor again was left a widower.
Again he applied for the hand of Eleonora. Her spiritual advisers now
urged that it was clearly the will of God that she should fill the first
throne of the universe, as the patroness and protectress of the Catholic
church. For such an object she would have been willing to sweep the
streets or to die in a dungeon. Yielding to these persuasions she
married the emperor, and was conveyed, as in a triumphal march, to the
gorgeous palaces of Vienna. But her character and her mode of life were
not changed. Though she sat at the imperial table, which was loaded with
every conceivable luxury, she condemned herself to fare as humble and
abstemious as could be found in the hut of the most impoverished
peasant. It was needful for her at times to appear in the rich garb of
an empress, but to prevent any possible indulgence of pride, she had her
bracelets and jewelry so arranged with sharp brads as to keep her in
continued suffering by the laceration of the flesh.
She was, notwithstanding these austerities, which she practiced with the
utmost secrecy, indefatigable in the discharge of her duties as a wife
and an empress. She often attended the opera with the emperor, but
always took with her the Psalms of David, bound to resemble the books of
the performance, and while the tragic or the comic scenes of the stage
were transpiring before her, she was studying the devout lyrics of the
Psalmist of Israel. She translated all the Psalms into German verse; and
also translated from the French, and had printed for the benefit of her
subjects, a devotional work entitled, "Pious Reflections for every Day
of the Month." During the last sickness of her husband she watched with
unwearied assiduity at his bed-side, shrinking from no amount of
exhaustion or toil, She survived her husband fifteen years, devoting all
this time to austerities, self-mortification and deeds of charity. She
died in 1720; and at her express request was buried without any parade,
and with no other inscription upon her tomb than--
ELEONORA,
A POOR SINNER,
Died, January 17, 1720.
Joseph, the eldest son of Leopold, was twenty-five years of age when, by
the death of his father, he was called to the throne as both king and
emperor. He immediately and cordially coöperated with the alliance his
father had formed, and pressed the war against France, Spain and Italy.
Louis XIV. was not a man, however, to be disheartened by disaster.
Though thousands of his choicest troops had found a grave at Blenheim,
he immediately collected another army of one hundred and sixty thousand
men, and pushed them forward to the seat of war on the Rhine and the
Danube. Marlborough and Eugene led Austrian forces to the field still
more powerful. The whole summer was spent in marches, countermarches and
bloody battles on both sides of the Rhine. Winter came, and its storms
and snows drove the exhausted, bleeding combatants from the bleak plains
to shelter and the fireside. All Europe, through the winter months,
resounded with preparations for another campaign. There was hardly a
petty prince on the continent who was not drawn into the strife--to
decide whether Philip of Bourbon or Charles of Hapsburg, was entitled by
hereditary descent to the throne of Spain.
And now suddenly Charles XII. of Sweden burst in upon the scene, like a
meteor amidst the stars of midnight. A more bloody apparition never
emerged from the sulphureous canopy of war. Having perfect contempt for
all enervating pleasures, with an iron frame and the abstemious habits
of a Spartan, he rushed through a career which has excited the wonder of
the world. He joined the Austrian party; struck down Denmark at a blow;
penetrated Russia in mid-winter, driving the Russian troops before him
as dogs scatter wolves; pressed on triumphantly to Poland, through an
interminable series of battles; drove the king from the country, and
placed a new sovereign of his own selection upon the throne; and then,
proudly assuming to hold the balance between the rival powers of France
and Austria, made demands of Joseph I., as if the emperor were but the
vassal of the King of Sweden. France and Austria were alike anxious to
gain the coöperation of this energetic arm.
Early in May, 1706, the armies of Austria and France, each about seventy
thousand strong, met in the Netherlands. Marlborough led the allied
Austrian troops; the Duke of Bavaria was in command of the French. The
French were again routed, almost as disastrously as at Blenheim, losing
thirteen thousand men and fifty pieces of artillery. On the Rhine and in
Italy the French arms were also in disgrace. Throughout the summer
battle succeeded battle, and siege followed siege. When the snows of
another winter whitened the plains of Europe, the armies again retired
to winter quarters, the Austrian party having made very decided progress
as the result of the campaign. Marlborough was in possession of most of
the Netherlands, and was threatening France with invasion. Eugene had
driven the French out of Italy, and had brought many of the Italian
provinces under the dominion of Austria.
In Spain, also, the warfare was fiercely raging. Charles III., who had
been crowned in Vienna King of Spain, and who, as we have mentioned, had
been conveyed to Lisbon by a British fleet, joined by the King of
Portugal, and at the head of an allied army, marched towards the
frontiers of Spain. The Spaniards, though they disliked the French,
hated virulently the English and the Dutch, both of whom they considered
heretics. Their national pride was roused in seeing England, Holland and
Portugal marching upon them to place over Spain an Austrian king. The
populace rose, and after a few sanguinary conflicts drove the invaders
from their borders. December's storms separated the two armies,
compelling them to seek winter quarters, with only the frontier line
between them. It was in one of the campaigns of this war, in 1704, that
the English took the rock of Gibraltar, which they have held from that
day till this.
The British people began to remonstrate bitterly against this boundless
expenditure of blood and treasure merely to remove a Bourbon prince, and
place a Hapsburg prince upon the throne of Spain. Both were alike
despotic in character, and Europe had as much to fear from the
aggressions of the house of Austria as from the ambition of the King of
France. The Emperor Joseph was very apprehensive that the English court
might be induced to withdraw from the alliance, and fearing that they
might sacrifice, as the price of accommodation, his conquests in Italy,
he privately concluded with France a treaty of neutrality for Italy.
This secured to him what he had already acquired there, and saved France
and Spain from the danger of losing any more Italian States.
Though the allies were indignant, and remonstrated against this
transaction, they did not see fit to abandon the war. Immense
preparations were made to invade France from the Netherlands and from
Piedmont, in the opening of the spring of 1707. Both efforts were only
successful in spreading far and wide conflagration and blood. The
invaders were driven from the kingdom with heavy loss. The campaign in
Spain, this year, was also exceedingly disastrous to the Austrian arms.
The heterogeneous army of Charles III., composed of Germans, English,
Dutch, Portuguese, and a few Spanish refugees, were routed, and with the
loss of thirteen thousand men were driven from the kingdom. Joseph,
however, who stood in great dread of so terrible an enemy as Charles
XII., succeeded in purchasing his neutrality, and this fiery warrior
marched off with his battalions, forty-three thousand strong, to drive
Peter I. from the throne of Russia.
Joseph I., with exhausted resources, and embarrassed by the claims of so
wide-spread a war, was able to do but little for the subjugation of
Hungary. As the campaign of 1708 opened, two immense armies, each about
eighty thousand strong, were maneuvering near Brussels. After a long
series of marches and combinations a general engagement ensued, in which
the Austrian party, under Marlborough and Eugene, were decisively
triumphant. The French were routed with the loss of fifteen thousand in
killed, wounded and prisoners. During the whole summer the war raged
throughout the Low Countries with unabated violence. In Spain, Austria
was not able to make any progress against Philip and his forces.
Another winter came, and again the wearied combatants, all of whom had
received about as many blows as they had given, sought repose. The
winter was passed in fruitless negotiations, and as soon as the buds of
another spring began to swell, the thunders of war were again pealing
over nearly all the hills and valleys of Europe. The Austrian party had
resolved, by a gigantic effort, to send an army of one hundred thousand
men to the gates of Paris, there to dictate terms to the French monarch.
On the 11th of September, 1709, the Austrian force, eighty thousand
strong, with eighty pieces of cannon, encountered the French, seventy
thousand in number, with eighty pieces of cannon, on the field of
Malplaquet. The bloodiest battle of the Spanish succession was then
fought. The Austrian party, guided by Marlborough and Eugene, justly
claimed the victory, as they held the field. But they lost twenty
thousand in killed and wounded, and took neither prisoners nor guns. The
loss of the French was but ten thousand. All this slaughter seemed to be
accomplishing nothing. Philip still stood firm upon the Spanish throne,
and Charles could scarcely gain the slightest foothold in the kingdom
which he claimed. On the side of the Rhine and of Italy, though blood
flowed like water, nothing was accomplished; the plan of invading France
had totally failed, and again the combatants were compelled to retire to
winter quarters.
For nine years this bloody war had now desolated Europe. It is not easy
to defend the cause of Austria and her allies in this cruel conflict.
The Spaniards undeniably preferred Philip as their king. Louis XIV. had
repeatedly expressed his readiness to withdraw entirely from the
conflict. But the Austrian allies demanded that he should either by
force or persuasion remove Philip from Spain, and place the kingdom in
the hands of the Austrian prince. But Philip was now an independent
sovereign who for ten years had occupied the throne. He was resolved not
to abdicate, and his subjects were resolved to support him. Louis XIV.
said that he could not wage warfare against his own grandson. The
wretched old monarch, now feeble, childless, and woe crushed, whose soul
was already crimsoned with the blood of countless thousands, was so
dispirited by defeat, and so weary of the war, that though he still
refused to send his armies against his grandson, he even offered to pay
a monthly subsidy of two hundred thousand dollars (one million livres)
to the allied Austrian party, to be employed in the expulsion of Philip,
if they would cease to make war upon him. Even to these terms, after
blood had been flowing in torrents for ten years, Austria, England and
Holland would not accede. "If I must fight either Austria and her
allies," said Louis XIV., "or the Spaniards, led by their king, my own
grandson, I prefer to fight the Austrians."
The returning sun of the summer of 1710, found the hostile armies again
in the field. The allies of Austria, early in April, hoping to surprise
the French, assembled, ninety thousand in number, on the Flemish
frontiers of France, trusting that by an unexpected attack they might
break down the fortresses which had hitherto impeded their way. But the
French were on the alert to resist them, and the whole summer was again
expended in fruitless battles. These fierce conflicts so concentrated
the energies of war in the Netherlands, that but little was attempted in
the way of invading Spain. The Spanish nobles rallied around Philip,
melted their plate to replenish his treasury, and led their vassals to
fight his battles. The ecclesiastics, as a body, supported his cause.
Philip was a zealous Catholic, and the priests considered him as the
defender of the Church, while they had no confidence in Charles of
Austria, whose cause was advocated by heretical England and Holland.
Charles III. was now in Catalonia, on the Mediterranean coast of Spain.
He had landed at Barcelona, with a strong force of English and Germans.
He was a man of but little character, and his military operations were
conducted entirely by the English general Stanhope and the German
general Staremberg. The English general was haughty and domineering; the
German proud and stubborn. They were in a continued quarrel contesting
the preeminence. The two rival monarchs, with forces about equal, met in
Catalonia a few miles from Saragossa, on the 24th of July, 1710. Though
the inefficient Charles was very reluctant to hazard a battle, the
generals insisted upon it. The Spaniards were speedily and totally
routed. Philip fled with a small body-guard to Lerida. His array was
thoroughly dispersed. The conquerors pressed on toward Madrid, crossed
the Ebro at Saragossa, where they again encountered, but a short
distance from the city, an army strongly posted upon some heights.
Philip was already there. The conflict was short but bloody, and the
generals of Charles were again victorious. Philip, with a disheartened
remnant of his troops, retreated to Madrid. The generals dragged the
timid and reluctant Charles on to Madrid, where they arrived on the 28th
of September. There was no force at the capital to oppose them. They
were received, however, by the citizens of the metropolis as foreign
conquerors. Charles rode through the deserted streets, meeting only with
sullen silence. A few who were hired to shout, were pelted, by the
populace, with mud, as traitors to their lawful king. None flocked to
his standard. Nobles, clergy, populace, all alike stood aloof from him.
Charles and his generals were embarrassed and perplexed. They could not
compel the nation to receive the Austrian king.
Philip, in the meantime, who had much energy and popularity of
character, was rapidly retrieving his losses, and troops were flocking
to his camp from all parts of Spain. He established his court at
Yalladolid, about one hundred and fifty miles north-east from Madrid.
His troops, dispersed by the two disastrous battles, were reassembled at
Lerida. The peasants rose in large numbers and joined them, and cut off
all communication between Charles at Madrid and his ships at Barcelona.
The Spanish grandees sent urgent messages to France for succors. General
Yendome, at the head of three thousand horse, swept through the defiles
of the Pyrenees, and, with exultant music and waving banners, joined
Philip at Valladolid. Universal enthusiasm was excited. Soon thirty
thousand infantry entered the camp, and then took positions on the
Tagus, where they could cut off any reinforcements which might attempt
to march from Portugal to aid the invaders.
Charles was apparently in a desperate situation. Famine and consequent
sickness were in his camp. His army was daily dwindling away. He was
emphatically in an enemy's country. Not a soldier could stray from the
ranks without danger of assassination. He had taken Madrid, and Madrid
was his prison.