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The war in Spain, which began in 1705, continued until the end of 1710. By then the Bourbon forces had defeated the second Allied attempt to establish Charles III in Madrid.

Twice Philip V had to abandon his capital precipitately, and once Charles III actually entered Madrid in triumph

When Peterborough reached Lisbon, he concerted plans with Charles III and Prince George of Hesse, fresh from his heroic defence of Gibraltar.

Charles III and his German ministers seized this opportunity to leave Portugal where it seemed unlikely that anything would be achieved, since the Portuguese were remarkably reluctant to take the offensive against the Bourbon forces

The first landing on Bourbon territory took place at Altea, where the local population flocked to recognize the new King of Spain

Though many citizens were said to be favourably disposed towards the Austrian cause, the Governor, Velasco, remained loyal to Philip V

Certainly, the King and his ministers believed the Earl had deceived them as to his real intentions

Pressure from Charles III, Hesse and Shovell, seemed to have some effect, and a plan to re-embark for Italy was dropped. Instead, “my Lord Peterborough hath been at last disposed to offer to the King, for an expedient, the march to Tarragona, and from thence to extend our quarters to Tortosa, and even into Valencia; which the King willingly accepted, as the only hope left for him that might conduct him to the throne.

On September 11th, it had been unanimously decided to march to Tarragona, yet on the 13th a small Allied force attacked the citadel of Montjuich, a decision that was to result in the capture of Barcelona and almost placed Charles III on the throne of Spain

the Prince of Hesse went thither as a volunteer

Peterborough had another piece of luck when the Marquis de Risburg, on his way to Montjuich with 3,000 reinforcements from Barcelona, questioned Colonel Allan and the other prisoners who were being escorted from the citadel to the city

The surviving 300 defenders quickly surrendered and Colonel Southwell, with the consent of the King, was made Governor of Montjuich as a reward for his services in capturing it

There appeared no possibility of relief and Velasco feared the horrors of a sack and the hostility of the populace, who were disposed to recognize Charles III

The Allies were given an enthusiastic welcome by the citizens of Barcelona and, indeed, many of the garrison volunteered to serve under Charles III. On October 23rd, the Austrian claimant made his formal entry into the city and, amid great rejoicing, was proclaimed King of Spain. The submission of the rest of Catalonia, except Rosas in the far north, quickly followed and the leading cities of Gerona, Tarragona, Tortosa and Lerida were either seized by the Miquelets or spontaneously declared their support for the Austrian cause

Charles III wrote to Queen Anne praising the conduct of Peterborough, while the Earl declared his debt to all the members of the expedition.

His gallantry and audacity were to win Valencia for Charles III

the Two Sicilies were happier under Charles than they had been for many a long century

he reversed his predecessor’s policy of neutrality and involved Spain in two expensive wars against Britain, for which she was ill-prepared; and he committed the country’s pride and strength to a spectacularly unsuccessful attempt to recover Gibraltar

Born in Madrid in 1716, the son of Spain’s first Bourbon King, Philip V, and of his second wife, Isabella Farnese, he enjoyed in some respects a happy and normal childhood

to bend the foreign policy of Spain solely for the purpose of providing kingdoms for her offspring

I would like to deserve to be called Charles the Wise

Philip V inherited the melancholy, the longing for seclusion that at times overcame all reason

the King had become so deranged that he had to abdicate in favour of Louis

In October 1731 he set off for Italy to take over the Duchies of Parma and Piacenza, and to garrison Tuscany, an inheritance arranged for him by Isabella

the Austrians had to withdraw and Naples was ensured a separate existence under the Bourbons. Charles returned to his regime of hunting, building and reform.

Taking advantage of Austria’s preoccupations elsewhere in the war of the Polish Succession, Isabella decided to attack in Italy. The aim was to recover for Spain the provinces of the Two Sicilies which had been Spanish for two centuries until 1713 when they had been handed over to Austria under the Treaty of Utrecht. Spain declared war on Austria in December 1733, and Charles was made titular commander-in-chief of the 30,000 Spanish troops that landed at Leghorn

Austria withdrew without a fight and in 1734 Charles became King of the Two Sicilies, a territory now independent for the first time. But as part of the general settlement he had to give up his rights in the Duchies; and a commitment was made, which for him cast a shadow before, that the crowns of Spain and of the Two Sicilies would never be united

As in Spain later, Charles challenged and reduced the powers and privileges of the aristocracy and clergy. He reformed the archaic legal and economic systems. His aim was ‘to sweep away feudalism’,

Naples before him had been without industry or trade

Naples rose and flourished, a European capital of the arts

he astounded the aristocracy of Madrid by the purity of his life

His mother was once again meddling in Italian affairs, trying this time to exploit Vienna’s preoccupation with the war of the Austrian Succession to recover the central Italian duchies for Philip, her second surviving son. Charles was forced to send troops north to support his brother’s Spaniards who had landed under the Duke of Montemar

he nourished a grievance against Britain

he helped to defeat the Austrian troops at Velletri. He showed courage and leadership in the battle, having survived an attempt at capture

identify government not only with order and tradition, but with reform, and thereby helped to avert revolution.

This routine was shattered in 1759 by the death of his childless half-brother Ferdinand VI who had been King of Spain since 1746; a King who, true to family tradition, had gone mad

For months the kingdom of Spain languished under this rule

From the moment of his arrival in Madrid in December 1759, Charles showed that he was not prepared to follow in Ferdinand’s easy-going footsteps. Government was a serious business, and would be conducted by himself in the interests of the people

Italian influence came in with him like a tidal wave, sweeping over muph of Spanish life

But it was in administrative reform that the sharpest note of change was stock. The economy of the country was sagging, yet Charles badly needed more money—among other things to pay off his father’s debts, and to strengthen the almost non-existent defences of Spain and the Indies. A flow of decrees poured forth regulating commerce and providing for the collection of revenue.

cleaning as was done was carried out by private enterprise, by troops of sweepers

Charles set about a radical clean-up

Since reaching Madrid, Charles had been under pressure from both sides to join in the war between Britain and Prussia on the one hand, and France and Austria on the other, which had broken out in 1756

Ferdinand VI had managed to stay neutral and Maria Amalia had been a strong influence for peace, but after her death, Charles changed his policy

life-long grudge against the British for having taken Gibraltar from his father—a feeling compounded by Commodore Martin’s insult

if he joined the French alliance, might help him to recover Minorca and Gibraltar. So in August 1761 he agreed to the Family Compact with Louis XV which brought him into war against Britain

Spain was heavily defeated by the British fleet which captured Havana and Manila

British power had greatly increased, partly at the expense of Spain

The country was exhausted, and there was much resentment against the French. Charles personally would have liked to have shaken himself out of the family straight-jacket

But Louis XV dismissed Choiseul and wrote to Charles in his own hand: ‘My minister would have war, but I will not

Charles had no alternative but to capitulate to the British

the Madrid mutiny of 1766

The favour he had shown early on towards the bourgeoisie, his concern for the poor, and the reforming zeal of his Ministers had all helped to generate distrust amongst the nobility and clergy

the discontent did not stop with the rich

There was widespread public unrest caused by the effects of the war, prolonged drought and high prices. Far from assuaging this, Charles had aggravated it, particularly in Madrid

public indignation

Squillace was the main target of public wrath

Within a week the King capitulated and agreed to everything

the Jesuits the scapegoat for the mutiny. In 1767 they were expelled from Spain with ruthless efficiency

Despite its demographic growth, it remained throughout the old regime period a court city, dominated by the king's household and government and their interests, as well as by the courtiers and other nobles and commoners attracted by the prospect of jobs, pensions, good marriages and high status

The threat this implied to order inspired some of the most significant of the reforms undertaken under Charles III

Not surprisingly, when Charles III -who had lived in Italy since 1731 as Duke of Parma and, from 1734 to 1759, as the first Bourbon king of Naples - arrived in his capital for the first time since he left it as a young boy, he was depressed by almost all that he saw. His determination to impose change provided a major impetus for the coming reforms

To Charles III and his ministers they seemed unworthy of the greatness of the Spanish imperial monarchy. Equally significant, they seemed to reinforce too strongly the presence of the church in an era in which enlightened thought set out to undermine baroque religiosity and clerical influence in secular life

Madrid had only been Spain's capital since 1561, when Philip II made what had been a town of purely secondary importance the political centre of his empire

But the characteristics which most typified Enlightenment reform in Spain were - apart from the heavy the arts as means of improvement -the impetus it received from Charles III and most of his ministers and the significant role played by some noblemen

Only during the reaction of the 1790s against the excesses of the French Revolution did most progressive thinkers find themselves effectively hedged in by the ministers and inquisitors of the new king, Charles IV (1788-1808). Under Charles HI, however, the king and his family, his ministers, sundry aristocrats in Madrid and elsewhere, many clerics and royal officials and some men and women of the professional and commercial middle classes harboured reformist ideas and patronised broadly enlightened artists and writers

This culture of the wealthy, enlightened elite, so heavily gallicised and secular-minded, was increasingly alienated from the ordinary people of Madrid, as well as the more traditionalist middle and upper ranks who chose to play no role in enlightened society

High food prices and the shortage of necessities could easily spark riots, as they did in the spring of 1766. The so-called Esquilache uprising, named after the Sicilian-born minister who was a principal target of the crowd's anger, spread from Madrid to many cities across Spain

The Manzanares was canalised and the Municipal Charity Committee, devised by Armona, was so successful that Charles III ordered similar bodies to be set up elsewhere. Free primary schools, essentially vocational, were established in each neighbourhood

Charles III, who had added numerous important buildings to Naples and nearby towns during his years as king there, sought from his first months in Spain to enhance his new capital

Travellers describing the capital in the 1770s and 1780s were impressed by its well lit, clean and impeccably paved streets; by the Paseo del Prado, which became one of Europe's finest thoroughfares; and by most of the structures Charles III had had built

Once it was clear to Charles that British terms were nonnegotiable, then the Bourbon Family Compact of 1761, a mutual-defense treaty with France, was a piece of realpolitik, signed by the “Anglophile” Ricardo Wall.

The consequence of such an alliance was involvement in the Seven Years’ War—too late to save France.

The Treaty of Paris (1763) concluded the Seven Years’ War and destroyed France as an American power.

The Family Compact was therefore an immediate military failure, and it was only the revolt of the North American colonies against Britain that enabled Spain to recover the ground it had lost; the successful alliance with France to aid the colonists resulted in the Treaty of Versailles (1783), which gave back Sacramento, the two Floridas, and Minorca.

In 1788 Charles III, who had been the “nerve” of reform in the sense that he loyally supported able ministers, was succeeded by his son, Charles IV, a weak, amiable man dominated by a lascivious wife, María Luisa.

The volume of Spanish goods in the American trade increased 10-fold in 10 years, prompting British concern at the Spanish revival.

The main attack of the regalists fell on the Jesuit order.

The question arises of the extent to which the policies of Charles III resulted from the acceptance by his servants of the precepts of the Enlightenment.

When the French Revolution exposed the dangers of progressive thought, the traditionalist cause was immensely strengthened, and the Inquisition appeared to the crown itself to be a useful instrument to control the spread of dangerous ideas

The problems of imperial defense were thus temporarily solved by British weakness after 1765. The positive side of Charles III’s imperial policy was an attempt to create an efficiently administered colonial empire that would provide the crown with increased revenues and with a closed market for the exports of an expanding Spanish economy, a program known as the “Bourbon Reforms.”

the French revolutionary and Napoleonic wars put unbearable pressures on a weak power. Reform was now dangerous. Neutrality was impossible; alliance with either France or the anti-revolutionary coalitions engineered by Britain proved equally disastrous

Spain had no alternative but to declare war on France after the execution of Louis XVI in 1793. The war was popular but disastrous; in 1794 the French armies invaded Spain, taking Bilbao, San Sebastián (Donostia–San Sebastián), and Figueres (Figueras).

Napoleon had lost all faith in Godoy and Spain as an ally; the “dirty intrigues” of Ferdinand, prince of Asturias and heir to the throne, against his father and Godoy led Napoleon to consider drastic intervention in Spanish affairs

compelled the abdication of Charles IV and the dismissal of Godoy. Napoleon summoned both the old king and Ferdinand VII to Bayonne, where both were compelled to abdicate. The Spanish throne was then offered to Joseph Bonaparte, Napoleon’s brother.

Five years later he had attempted to manipulate the outcome of the marriage of Isabella II of Spain against French interests in order to align Britain with a liberal Spain

In February 1848, a new revolution in Paris threatened to upset Anglo-French relations altogether

he Second Republic was therefore seen as unstable and potentially militaristic, and Palmerston’s reaction was to issue a confidential  paper outlining government preparations for an imminent invasion of Britain

There was considerable relief in London, then, when in October the political body in France agreed to usher in a republic under the authority of a president elected for four years by universal adult manhood suffrage. The future of Anglo-French relations would now hinge  on the identity of the new president

In December, Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, nephew to the great defeated enemy of England, was elected first president of the Second Republic, gaining 74.3 per cent of the 7,449,471 votes cast in metropolitan France

In Britain, initial reaction to the news was mixed. Louis-Napoléon had spent three years in exile in England between 1831 and 1848, and over five separate visits had acquired a respect for, and knowledge of, the country unrivalled among European heads of state

The sepoy revolt in India in May 1857 could hardly be blamed on Napoleon III, but in some quarters the suggestion was made that he was secretly helping them. A short visit to Osborne in August to meet the Queen and Palmerston put the matter straight (though none there had believed it).

When the French navy was not seen to be steaming up the Thames the panic dissipated, but the fears were resurrected after Louis-Napoléon’s coup d’état of December 2nd, 1851, dissolving the National Assembly and declaring a new constitution. Opinion polarised both in France and Britain; on the one hand Louis-Napoléon was declared a ‘saviour of society’ and on the other the ‘Antichrist’

even the Queen hoped that Louis-Napoléon’s enemies abroad would remain ‘perfectly passive’. But the press and its public were united in bitter condemnation. By January 1852, the poet Coventry Patmore had persuaded nineteen friends to form the first Rifle Club as part of a nation-wide army of volunteers to repel, as he put it later, ‘the threats of the French colonels and by suspicions of the intentions of Louis-Napoléon

The second invasion panic did not subside until a formal alliance was established in March 1854, preceding the Crimean War. In April 1855 the Emperor Napoleon III (as Louis-Napoléon had declared himself in December 1852) enjoyed a successful state visit to Britain, reciprocated by an equally successful visit by Victoria to Paris in August. Throughout the Crimean War, Napoleon III allowed Britain to lead affairs

personal relations between Palmerston and Napoleon III continued to deteriorate throughout the early 1860s

The incident most dangerous to Franco-British relations occurred on January 14th, 1858, when an attempt was made to assassinate Napoleon III in the streets of Paris, the plot hatched in London by political refugees

But popular opinion in England remained suspicious of the Second Republic, and the economic upturn was accompanied by the first of three intense ‘invasion panics’, which recalled to mind those set in motion many years earlier by Napoleon I

Outright war between France and England might have resulted had two different players been involved: Napoleon III apologised to Lord Cowley, Britain’s ambassador in Paris, for having overlooked the jingoistic pronouncements in Le Moniteur universel, while Palmerston attempted to introduce a Conspiracy Bill, which would have elevated the crime of conspiring to murder persons abroad from a misdemeanour to a felony.

To Napoleon III from Queen Victoria’ promised to him in 1855 but somehow ‘forgotten’. The entente had been saved by an imperial whisker

In the wake of the assassination attempt Napoleon III was keen to demonstrate that his improvements to the naval base at Cherbourg were not a threat to Britain, and in August 1858 he invited Victoria and Albert, several politicians and naval men, to inspect them as a mark of trust.

The third invasion panic, the following year, originated in Napoleon III’s military attempt in May 1859 to oust Habsburg influence in Italy and prepare the peninsula for some form of unification and self-government

France’s annexation of Nice and Savoy in 1860 as a reward from Piedmont-Sardinia following the war in Italy was wholeheartedly approved by the local populace in a referendum

Napoleon III’s attempt to set up by direct intervention a European monarchy in Mexico from October 1861 (when a French, Spanish and British naval fleet worked in concert to extract the payment of debts from a corrupt Mexican administration) was approved by Palmerston but again vigorously opposed by Albert and all the royal family – and was unpopular in Britain, although offset by several other actions. Napoleon III’s vigorous support of free trade resulted in the pioneering Cobden-Chevalier Treaty of 1860 which, while it undoubtedly harmed a minority of trades, vastly improved the majority, increasing prosperity and mutual trust

Napoleon III was careful to appear subservient, enabling Palmerston to acknowledge that the British ‘throughout had their own way and ... led the way’

The Duruz were the aggressors in this instance, and thousands of Christians were killed during a period resolved only through French diplomacy, Turkish aid and Algerian sympathy

Napoleon III reacted by sighing that once he used to say ‘avec Lord Palmerston on peut faire les grandes choses’ but now he seemed determined to prevent him doing anything at all

The most bizarre was that Napoleon III was looking for the nephew of Marie Cantillon, a man who had attempted to assassinate the Duke of Wellington in Paris in 1818, to pay him money Napoléon I had bequeathed Cantillon in his recently published will

Napoleon III’s attempt to set up a European monarchy in Mexico was his only independent action undertaken in the 1860s to meet with Palmerston’s general approval, but only for what the scheme potentially meant for British trade

Following military defeat by Prussia and deposition by Parisian ideologues in 1870, Napoleon III died in England on January 9th, 1873.

Gladstone soon came to terms with the new Third French Republic, and the rest of Europe again took Britain’s lead in officially recognising the new French regime

The Napoleonic wars did not end at Waterloo, but in Paris in the hands of Napoleon III. Punch stated why on January 18th, 1873

Exercising full sovereignty, he pursued a foreign policy sometimes at variance with his father’s. After concluding a secret alliance with Savoy for a partition of the Duchy of Milan, Louis, recently widowed, married Charlotte, daughter of Duke Louis of Savoy, despite Charles VII’s prohibition (1451).

Installed as Philip’s guest, Louis could acquaint himself thoroughly with the working of the great Burgundian state, the ruin of which he was later to seek.

His first act was to strike at Charles VII’s ministers.

Louis XI’s major preoccupation was with the princes and great vassals of the kingdom, who were ready to form alliances with one another or with England against him. Former officers of Charles VII stirred up hostility against the King’s new men; Jean II, duc de Bourbon, and Francis II of Brittany emerged as the leaders of the malcontent nobility; Philip the Good’s son and future successor, Charles the Bold of Burgundy, supported the King’s enemies; and the King’s own brother, Charles de France, at first duc de Berry, became a tool of the rebels.

During the negotiations Charles learned of an insurrection in Liège, fomented by the French king’s agents.

Having already attacked Burgundy, Louis found himself facing a new host of enemies, including not only Charles the Bold, Edward IV, and Francis of Brittany but also, in the southwest, Charles de France, to whom Louis had granted the Duchy of Guyenne in 1469, Jean V d’Armagnac, and John II of Aragon, who hoped to recover Roussillon.

After 1475 it remained for Louis to destroy the power of Burgundy.

by the Treaty of Arras (1482), Louis retained full sovereignty over the Duchy of Burgundy, Picardy, and Boulonnais and possession of Franche-Comté and Artois as the dowry of Margaret of Austria, daughter of Mary and Maximilian, fiancée of his infant son and heir, the future Charles VIII.

Louis regarded war as a precarious enterprise and made it only with reluctance, though he maintained the standing army that Charles VII had instituted.

After Charles the Bold’s death there was no one to prevent Louis from exercising a virtual protectorate over Savoy, where his sister Yolande was regent, and he made himself the arbiter of the affairs of northern Italy.

Austria refused to recognize Philip, a Bourbon

a Bourbon king in Spain would disrupt the balance of power in Europe in favour of French hegemony

Spain under a Bourbon king as a political and commercial appendage of France

He wished to regenerate and strengthen his ally by a modern centralized administration

the allied armies of Britain and Austria invaded Spain in order to drive out Philip V and establish the “Austrian” candidate, the archduke Charles (later the Holy Roman emperor Charles VI), on the throne

An efficient administration had to be created in order to extract resources from Spain for the war effort and thus relieve pressure on the French treasury

Castile was ferociously loyal to the new dynasty throughout the war. The support of Castile and of France (until 1711) enabled Philip V to survive severe defeats

Spanish lawyer-administrators such as Melchor de Macanaz

They were supported by the queen, María Luisa of Savoy

The opponents of reform were those who suffered by it

Catalonia, Aragon, and Valencia

a Castilian centralizing imposition in conflict with the local privileges, or fueros

the church, whose position was threatened by the ferocious and doctrinaire regalism of Macanaz

The disaffection of all these elements easily turned into opposition to Philip V as king

war taxation and war levies drove Catalonia and Aragon to revolt

When Philip V tried to attack Catalonia through Aragon, the Aragonese, in the name of their fueros, revolted against the passage of Castilian troops

When the archbishop of Valencia resisted attempts to make priests of doubtful loyalty appear before civil courts, the regalism of Macanaz was given full course

This was the last direct triumph of the reformers. With the death of Queen María Luisa in 1714

Macanaz was condemned by the Inquisition

the fueros were abolished and Catalonia was integrated into Spain

The “Italian” tendency was influenced by Philip V’s second wife, Isabella, and her desire to get Italian thrones for her sons.

The attempt to recover the possessions in Italy involved Spain in an unsuccessful war with Austria, which was now the great power in Italy

Nevertheless, Isabella’s persistence was rewarded when her son, the future King Charles III of Spain, became the duke of Parma in 1731 and king of Naples in 1733, relinquishing his claims to Parma

The “Italian” and “Atlantic” tendencies existed side by side in the late years of Philip V’s reign

It made possible an alliance of France and Spain against Austria, giving Isabella the opportunity to settle her second son, Philip, in an Italian duchy

Ferdinand VI (1746–59) was concerned with the domestic recovery of Spain rather than the extension of its power in Europe

the treaty merely strengthened Spain’s position in Italy when Philip became duke of Parma, Piacenza, and Guastalla. The Atlantic tendency became dominant under Ferdinand VI

Because Britain was Spain’s most significant enemy in the Americas (as Austria had been in Italy), Spain’s “natural” ally was France

hence a series of family pacts with France in 1733 and 1743

The American interest was reflected in increased trade

Charles III, Ferdinand’s successor, implemented dramatic reforms that followed along the path set by Ferdinand.

During Aranda’s administration, an ambitious project was adopted for colonizing a depopulated area in the South of Spain, the Sierra Morena, with colonists from abroad, mostly from Germany

Charles certainly tried to reduce the authority and privilege of the Church, but he was pious and his intervention was moderate.

It was not merely what the Inquisition did, but what it deterred men from doing

it is an absolute principle always to do what has been done the day before and to do it in absolutely the same way

Charles issued a decree declaring officially that the trades of tanner, blacksmith, tailor and shoemaker did not degrade the person exercising them, or his family. To carry the point further, he worked from time to time with his hands in his own factories, and he was proud of having made the boots and main items of a soldier’s equipment

It is difficult to exaggerate the darkness of the intellectual climate in which Charles and the men of the enlightenment had to work

It is impossible to understand Charles’ reign or the achievement of the men of the enlightenment in Spain without keeping constantly in mind how widespread and entrenched were the forces of conservatism, intolerance and privilege, and how few were the men who believed that the only hope for the country lay in the introduction of new ideas—in the acceptance of reason rather than tradition as the lode-star of human activity

has never produced a speculative scientist of great renown

Few people here discover any love for the sciences. Books are little read

Much was done to reform the universities

There was a revulsion against war and a condemnation of militarism. ‘This peninsula,’ wrote Cadalso, ‘has not enjoyed anything that can be called peace for nearly 2,000 years. It is a marvel that there is any grass in the fields or water in the fountains

In 1771 he created a new order that opened the doors of the nobility to the bourgeoisie

Along with the embourgeoisement of the Spanish central government went a fresh broom in local affairs that swept away many of the old hereditary offices, opened them up to anyone who was qualified regardless of birth, and even introduced elections for certain posts

He also encountered the deep-seated conservatism of the people who feared the slightest change

He established royal factories for clocks and porcelain; infant industries were protected, and some of the restrictive practices of the enormously powerful guilds were curtailed

The first national bank of Spain was founded, and economic societies were established in many parts of the country to spread technical knowledge

Trade with the colonies was encouraged; new highways were built

Charles was also a considerable patron of the arts and sciences. He founded an astronomical observatory and an immense hospital.

Napoleon remarked to his brother, Joseph, when he gave him the crown of Spain

But Charles’s struggle for internal reform was partly stultified by his failure to spare the country the cost of further war. In 1775 an expedition was undertaken against Algiers which failed ignominiously

The 1733 family Compact between the Kings of France and Spain contained an article committing His Most Christian Majesty to do everything, if necessary using force, to compel the British to restore Gibraltar to Spain

It bound Madrid to Paris and prevented Spain from making common cause with Britain

the main source of five Anglo-Spanish wars in seventy-five years and was the prime objective for which Spain joined France in the War of American Independence

Spain’s participation in the war led at first to a joint French-Spanish plan to invade England, but this soon had to be abandoned and, after the failure of secret peace talks, Spanish activity came to be concentrated more and more upon the capture of the Rock

as if all the ingenuity of Europe was combined against the Rock

From all over France and Spain spectators flocked to see the 7,000 British defenders under General George Elliot defeated by the 40,000 men under the command of the renowned Spanish general

The battle was over, and with it Spain’s chance of recovering the Rock by force

But George III was in favour of giving it up since he was convinced that ‘this proud fortress’, to use his own words, would be ‘the source at least of a constant lurking enmity between England and Spain’

He so arranged things that the British offer never reached the court of Madrid

The French Minister did not want to make the sacrifice of territory necessary to accomplish the exchange; nor did he wish to weaken the ties that bound the Bourbon powers by removing the greatest single obstacle to a reconciliation between Spain and England

In the light of history, it looks as if a golden opportunity was missed for resolving the problem. Spain recovered Minorca and acquired the whole of Florida. But the source of enmity continued to lurk

The war had brought serious consequences for Spain’s internal economy. But it had also not been without its effect on the problems of the Spanish-American colonies which now had a Republic on their doorstep

the movement for separation. The development of trade led to more prosperity among many of the creoles and, hence, to in-dependent-mindedness

the propagation of the ideas of the enlightenment

He insisted on every detail of every new idea being thrashed out in one or other of the various councils of state

like his great-grandfather, Louis XIV, that punctuality is the courtesy of kings

He was not out for himself, but for the welfare and happiness of his subjects

There could be no attenuation of his absolute authority. It was government for the people, certainly, but without the people

If the hopes were not entirely fulfilled and if Spain before long slipped backwards again into the darkness from which Charles had tried to lift her, the causes were hardly his responsibility.

The French Revolution spread such fears amongst the reforming rulers of Spain that they panicked and suspended all progress

Charles simply did not reign long enough to establish for all time the climate of change he had introduced

John signed a new truce with England on Sept. 12, 1351, but broke it by supporting the partisans of Charles of Blois (a pretender to Brittany, then held prisoner by Edward)

John’s other bitter enemy was Charles II the Bad, king of Navarre, to whom John gave his daughter Joan as an offer of alliance; the enmity still remained strong

John further irritated Charles by giving the new constable of France, Charles de La Cerda, lands that were claimed by Charles of Navarre.

Charles desired an alliance with Edward, which so frightened John that he made another peace with Charles on Sept. 10, 1355.

John took his revenge on Charles by having him imprisoned

Edward’s son Edward, prince of Wales (later called the Black Prince), attacked southern France. Unable to halt the English invasions because he lacked funds, John gathered the States General to seek money and to impose an unpopular salt tax.

The French army was decimated, and John was taken prisoner.

John was taken to London in April 1357, where he was lodged in the Savoy palace; there he concluded treaties (January 1358 and March 1359) so harsh that they were repudiated in France.

fixed John’s ransom at 3,000,000 gold écus and surrendered most of southwestern France to Edward. On Oct. 9, 1360, John was released to raise a ransom that France could not afford to pay, and hostages were accepted in his place. When one of the hostages (John’s own son) escaped, John, feeling dishonoured, returned to England on his own volition as a prisoner.

When James returned from Ireland in the summer of 1690 he was intent on preparing an invasion of England across the Channel from Normandy. Energetically supported by the leading Jacobites in exile, his negotiations with Louis XIV resulted in the major Franco-Jacobite invasion attempt of June 1692

James calculated, correctly, that these three ingredients would stimulate loyalty and attract visitors to his Court – whether Jacobites already in exile, others impatiently awaiting his return to England, or the many French courtiers who, like Louis XIV himself, regularly made the short journey from Versailles to Saint-Germain

James’s optimism remained with him throughout the period 1690-92, particularly when his able and devoted Secretary of State, the Earl of Melfort, rejoined him from a lengthy embassy to Rome at the end of 1691

He wrote to Louis XIV, blaming himself for bringing bad luck to the French fleet and offering to leave France, so that Louis’ military and naval successes could be resumed. The King of France kindly rejected his offer

Religious nonconformity had been illegal in France since the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, so James had to be cautious. He knew perfectly well that Louis had strong feelings on the subject, and that he had refused to allow Anglican and other Protestant services to be held openly, even within the Château de Saint-Germain

The disappointment which James  had experienced in 1692 was repeated in 1696. At the end of February, James left Saint-Germain and travelled to Calais, where an army had been assembled to invade England

The abortive Assassination Plot, an unauthorised attempt by certain Jacobites to break the deadlock by killing William III, resulted in the cancellation of the planned invasion and James’s return (his third) to Saint-Germain

William III used Louis’ recognition of James III as de jure king of England to renew his war with France, but it was no more than a pretext. All English kings, including William himself, claimed to be the de jure kings of France. During the 1690s, James II had been admitted as a Canon of Tours Cathedral because that was a privilege claimed by the English kings as de jure Counts of Anjou

James II decided to establish in the Chapel Royal at Saint-Germain the devotion known as Bona Morte, a confraternity of people who would meet together to contemplate the Passion of Christ

These medals were intended to remind people that his son was the de jure Prince of Wales, and that one day he would unavoidably become King James III

James wanted to be absolutely sure that Louis XIV would recognise his son as James III when he was dead. He need not have worried. Recognition was in no sense contrary to the Treaty of Ryswick, and Louis already knew that it was his religious duty to recognise the legitimate succession

Louis would become the guardian of both of James’s children, and would recognise his son as James III so long as he remained a Catholic. James II recorded Louis’ side of the agreement in a codicil to his will, dated March 5th

In this way it was already settled that Louis would eventually give the same treatment to James III as he was already giving to James II, not in September 1701 – an important point which all historians seem to have overlooked

At the end of the year he was distressed to discover that Louis XIV intended to lay off even more Irish troops and wrote unsuccessfully to dissuade him

The letter contained some confidential comments, as one might expect between two brothers, about the Jacobite sympathies of various Scottish noblemen and the chances of persuading France to resume its support for James II’s claims to the British thrones

All that remained was to remind the prince repeatedly that he must continue to be a Catholic if he was to retain and deserve the support of Louis XIV. James finally died on September 16th. Louis’ recognition of James III, as we have seen, had been arranged long before it finally came into effect

It is extraordinary that the last years of any British king, and particularly one whose life is quite well documented, should have received such little attention from generations of British historians

When England terminated the Treaty of Ryswick by declaring war on France in 1702, Louis XIV was able to resume the support of the Stuarts which he could not do while the Treaty remained in force

The circumstances of his death make James II an ideal subject for the study of royal DNA. His remains are more accessible than those of any other British monarch, and thus allow us to determine definitely, one way or the other, if the porphyria gene which was passed down by Mary, Queen of Scots through James I to his daughter Elizabeth, the ‘Winter Queen’ (and from her to the Hanoverians and their descendants today) was also transmitted by Charles I to the later Stuarts, including James III and Bonnie Prince Charlie.

His religious devotion was accompanied by a blameless personal life and a chaste loyalty to the memory of his wife, Maria Amalia of Saxony, who died in 1760. On the other hand, he was so highly conscious of royal authority that he sometimes appeared more like a tyrant than an absolute monarch

Charles III improved the agencies of government through which the will of the crown could be imposed. He completed the process whereby individual ministers replaced the royal councils in the direction of affairs

Fearing that a British victory over France in the Seven Years’ War would upset the balance of colonial power, he signed the Family Compact with France—both countries were ruled by branches of the Bourbon family—in August 1761

But Charles’s opposition to papal jurisdiction in Spain also led him to curb the arbitrary powers of the Inquisition, while his desire for reform within the church caused him to appoint inquisitors general who preferred persuasion to force in ensuring religious conformity

He particularly resented the Jesuits, whose international organization and attachment to the papacy he regarded as an affront to his absolutism

By the end of his reign, Spain had abandoned its old commercial restrictions and, while still excluding foreigners, had opened up the entire empire to a commerce in which all its subjects and all its main ports could partake

Within these limits he led his country in a cultural and economic revival, and, when he died, he left Spain more prosperous than he had found it

The war with England soon broke out again. Two new factors worked in favour of France. First, Charles’s alliance with Henry II of Trastámara, king of Castile, cost the English their naval supremacy; a Castilian fleet destroyed English reinforcements off La Rochelle in 1372, which effectively secured the success of French operations in the west. Second, Charles abandoned the defective policy of massive engagement with the enemy.

Although he had reestablished the political unity of France, Charles V left an uncertain future.

Henry was the sixth child and fourth son of Henry II and Catherine de’ Medici

France had been embroiled in a civil war between the crown and its Protestant or Huguenot subjects since 1562. In 1567 Henry took command of the royal army

He travelled to Poland with an entourage, but during the summer of 1574 he was informed of the death of his brother, Charles IX. He thus became king of both France and Poland

Without so much as bidding adieu to his Polish subjects, Henry made haste to  return to France by way of Austria and northern Italy

In February 1575 he married Louise de Vaudémont, a princess of the House of Lorraine, whose beauty had dazzled him on the eve of his departure for Poland

The situation had been aggravated by the accidental death of Henry II in 1559, which had left the kingdom in the hands of his widow, Catherine de’ Medici, and her young sons. As queen mother under Francis II, then as regent under Charles IX

In the absence of Henry begetting a son, the heir to the throne was his brother-in-law Henry of Navarre (1553-1610), who, as a Huguenot, was unacceptable to the Catholic majority in France. In 1576, a group of cities headed by Paris had formed an armed association, called the Catholic League, aimed at excluding Navarre from the throne. It chose Charles, cardinal of Bourbon,

As king, Henry III was apparently well-intentioned towards his subjects regardless of their faith. As he returned to Lyon from Poland in 1574, he declared a wish to be at peace with them all, and he seemed better equipped than his recent predecessors to succeed. He was probably the most intellectually gifted of the later Valois kings

The task of ruling France that the king faced in 1574 was far from easy, as so much hatred had arisen between Catholics and Huguenots

The king of France is so familiar with his subjects that he treats them all as his companions and no one is ever excluded from his presence, so that even lackeys of the lower sort are bold enough to wish to enter his privy chamber in order to see all that is going on there and to hear all that is being said… This familiarity, if it makes the nation insolent and arrogant, nevertheless inspires love, devotion and loyalty to its prince.

He believed that his authority would be enhanced by distancing himself from his subjects

Although Henry III valued privacy, he liked to surround himself with a select group of intimate friends, mostly men of his own generation who came to be known as mignons

Whereas Charles IX had taken part in 109 civic entries during his ‘Grand Tour of France’ in 1564-66, Henry had only four in his entire reign

The court’s extravagance at a time of severe economic crisis incurred much criticism

The supreme irony of Henry III’s reign was his failure to win over the capital by his presence

aloofness, extravagance and eccentricity

Believing Guise to be plotting a coup d’etat, Henry decided to exterminate him. Having lured the duke to his antechamber at Blois, the king stood by as his guards hacked Guise to death

This cold-blooded murder was by far Henry’s biggest blunder

Henry III’s only hope of regaining control of the capital was to join forces with  his appointed heir, the Huguenot leader, Henry of Navarre

Henry III on his deathbed appointing Navarre as his successor

Neither intellect nor good intentions had been sufficient to gain Henry III the love of his subjects. His life had been a tragedy

Defeated at Stångebro (1598), Sigismund was deposed the following year and replaced by Charles as virtual ruler of Sweden.

By playing on the nobles’ fear of absolutist rule by an absentee monarch, Charles won their support in forcing Sigismund to accept the decisions of the Convention of Uppsala and to recognize Charles as regent in conjunction with the nobles’ state council.

Catholic Sigismund also succeeded to the Swedish throne in 1592

He was declared king in 1604

Charles’s overthrow of Sigismund led to hostilities with Poland

Charles’s forces then intervened in Russia, attempting to prevent a Polish conquest of the country and to install his son Gustavus (later king of Sweden as Gustav II Adolf) as ruler.

tried to rule by a diet subordinated to his will and a system of terror

The supposed humiliation of attending the sack of Liege by the Burgundian army cost him little; and he avoided the second condition imposed by Charles—the award of Champagne and Brie to Charles de France—by persuading his brother to accept the more remote province of Guyenne in their place

Yet Philip the Good felt himself increasingly isolated by French negotiations with Frederick III and the Swiss cantons. The opportune arrival of the Dauphin allowed him to reassert his influence at the French court and to arbitrate between father and son

Louis XI appeared to represent all the forces of feudal and Burgundian reaction

The independent duchy of Brittany possessed its own governmental institutions, and its ruler, Francis II, refused anything but simple homage to both Charles VII and his successor

If his royal connections and foreign ambitions had induced this capricious and luxury-loving prince to avoid open conflict with the crown, his impetuous son, John of Calabria, was foremost in every plot and affray

Louis XI might dismiss his father’s favourites; but he could not afford to reverse his policy. He refused support for John of Calabria’s ill-fated venture in Italy, quarrelled with Philip the Good, and disputed the right of Francis II to control the church in Brittany.

The King did indeed learn much from the League of the Common Weal

He took advantage of a misunderstanding between his ineffective brother and Francis II to recover Normandy, and at the same time distracted Burgundy by encouraging the revolt of the cities of Dinant and Liege. Having bought off Brittany and Charles de France, he sought to detach them from their Burgundian alliance by revealing the details of their defection

Louis XI also anticipated later methods of economic warfare. He deprived his Burgundian enemy of specie and procured the withdrawal of the support afforded him by the Medici bank. His concessions to English, Swiss and Hanseatic merchants were designed to detach them from Burgundian commerce

In these years Louis XI was conducting equally complex negotiations in Aragon and England

Charles VII exiled him to his government in Dauphiné. The nine years he spent there were occupied with strengthening the provincial administration and resisting the authority of the Crown

Pot-bellied and spindle-shanked, Louis XI was an unlikely figure, either as a monster of vice or, as he described himself, as the restorer of the splendours of Charlemagne and St. Louis

Louis employed the agents of the former financier, Jacques Coeur, whose condemnation under Charles VII he declared invalid. From Tours he drew the merchant financiers of the Beaune and Briçonnet families, and from Berry the Bochetels, who founded a notable line of royal secretaries

It is doubtful whether Louis XI had any general plan to transform the social order, but he found the middle classes his most convenient allies against the forces of disorder from above and below

In the towns Louis XI accelerated the trend to the formation of urban patriciates. He widened the special form of ennoblement available to municipal councillors.

From the number of national assemblies convoked by Louis XI it is sometimes conjectured that his government proceeded by consultative methods. But of the twelve such bodies convened by the King only one was a full Estates General, the others being merely assemblies of notables

The Estates General of Tours in 1468 was skilfully won over to the royal cause, and persuaded that to grant Normandy to the King’s brother would be to detach it from France and expose it to English and Burgundian influence

Trade prospered under Louis XI, but the recovery of agriculture was slow in the aftermath of the Hundred Years War. Choisnet had written in the Rosier des Guerres that “the King should see for himself the condition of his people, and should watch over them as a good gardener does his garden.”

While Louis won over Warwick, and reconciled the King-Maker with Margaret of Anjou to secure the brief Lancastrian restoration of 1470, the Burgundian Duke responded by publicly welcoming the return of Henry VI, and secredy promoting the triumph of his Yorkist brother-in-law, Edward IV.

As Charles VII had promoted the trade fairs of Lyon to ruin Geneva, so Louis established fairs at Caen and Rouen to challenge those of Bruges and Antwerp

Charles the Rash pursued chimerical schemes in Alsace, and clashed with the German Emperor. His preoccupation with affairs in the electorate of Cologne prevented him from supporting an English invasion of France in 1475, and Louis bought off Edward IV with the Treaty of Picquigny

Maximilian, the son of Frederick III, married the Burgundian heiress, Mary, and defended her lands against France until the Treaty of Arras brought peace in 1482. In all his calculations the Spider King could not have foreseen that Philip, the issue of this match, would marry the daughter and heiress of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile— an alliance which itself was in part a response to Louis’ policy in Catalonia

A new France had been nurtured by measures that seem at times not merely generations but centuries in advance of their age. Yet for all the surprising modernity of his policies, the manner in which Louis died revealed the extent to which he was still in thrall to the forces of the past.

The arcana of kingship which he bad penetrated were not of this kind. The first of modern national rulers went to his death surrounded by all the trappings of magic

He was the “most Christian King” who entered into an alliance with the enemy of Christendom. He was the destroyer of the integrity and tradition of the Gallican Church. He was the voluptuary who allowed his court to be divided into factions

His father, Charles of Angouleme, resembled his namesake and uncle, the graceful lyric poet, Charles of Orleans

The group accepted the easy guardianship at Amboise of Louis, Duke of Orléans, who two years later became King as Louis XII.

The adulation of his mother and sister shielded him from the hatred of Anne of Brittany. The Queen had borne Louise XII an only child, the Princess Claude, who was heiress of Brittany in her mother’s right

Francis was heir-presumptive to the French Crown. A marriage between Francis and Claude seemed a natural arrangement, which would prevent the alienation of the Duchy of Brittany from the French royal house. But the Queen was firmly opposed to it, and the marriage took place only after her death in 1514

the future of the heir-presumptive remained in doubt. In October 1514, Louis XII

married Mary of England, the sister of Henry VIII. Francis was less distressed than his mother

Bonnivet was made Admiral of France, and the long-vacant title of Constable was bestowed upon his cousin, Charles of Bourbon

The election of Charles V marked the beginning of a two-hundred-year conflict between the French monarchy and the Hapsburgs

In February 1516, the grandson of the Emperor, Charles of Austria, inherited the thrones of Aragon and Castile. Six months later, he recognized the French conquest of Milan. At this time there was no hostility between him and Francis I.

Political responsibilities were not neglected in the flush of military success.

opposed to a rival whose encircling dominions included Spain, the Netherlands, Germany and southern Italy, and whose strength was augmented by the wealth of the New World

The contrast between the ebullient King of the Renaissance and the melancholic Emperor has always attracted the attention of historians

The one reliving the ancient myths of the universal monarchy and the crusade against the infidel: the other replacing the symbolic attitudes of the past with the realistic values of the nation state

The two Kings were too much alike in age and temperament to allow common interests to still the spirit of mutual competition

Henry VIII, reading through the terms of a declaration, obligingly omitted his title of King of France

When hostilities began in the following year, the Tudor King, after making some show of mediation, aligned himself with the Emperor. The war went badly

For a year Francis I remained the captive of the Emperor in Madrid, while Louise of Savoy rallied national sentiment for the continuation of the war

The great-grandfather of the Emperor was Charles the Bold of Burgundy. It was as a Burgundian that Charles V claimed the lands that had been seized by Louis XI. The release of the King was not secured until a pledge had been given for the cession of Burgundy

The subsequent death of Catherine of Aragon removed the cause of English disagreement with the Emperor. In the last two wars of the reign Henry VIII reverted to the imperial alliance

In the course of the war, Bourbon was killed during the ferocious assault of his mutinous forces on Rome in May 1527

In the sack of Rome Henry VIII saw an opportunity to win the favour of Clement VII and obtain the annulment of his marriage with Catherine of Aragon. For several years he remained the ally of France

Even after the revelation of the marriage with Anne Boleyn, Francis pleaded the English case during his meeting with the Pope at Marseilles in October 1533

The King had never intended to observe the terms of the Treaty of Madrid. Fresh allies were found in Italy, notably Pope Clement VII

Turkish armies were threatening the eastern imperial marches. In his league with the Sultan Sulaiman he inaugurated one of the most enduring of French policies

a vast Turkish army had erupted into Hungary and overwhelmed the Emperor’s Hungarian allies

The infidel was regarded with mingled curiosity and horror

The Ottoman alliance appalled the conscience of Europe; but the King found it difficult to resist the temptation offered by the expeditions of Charles V to North Africa and the campaigns of his brother, Ferdinand, upon the Bohemian border

Although the King’s diplomacy with the Papacy, the Turk, England and the Princes of the Empire, contained many failures and much duplicity, it was pursued with a realism and a flexibility that offset his lack of strategic ability in war

By June 1538, when Paul III personally negotiated the truce of Nice, it appeared possible to achieve a genuine reconciliation

The significant campaigns of the future were not to be fought in Italy, but on the frontiers of France

The altered texture of French society in the first half of the sixteenth century was, in part, a response to the demands of the monarchy

Francis I never summoned a full Estates-General

In July 1527, in the presence of the King, the Parlement heard from the lips of secretary Robertet a statement so imperious and unequivocal that it represented an unprecedented declaration of monarchical absolutism. The King, like Louis XII before him, was called the father of his people; but, whereas Louis earned his patriarchal status through his benevolence, Francis claimed it as his right

His sister, Marguerite, now Queen of Navarre, was scarcely less influential

Factions long concealed within the court became more apparent after the death of the Dauphin in 1536

The plain and modest Queen Eleonore, sister of Charles V, whom the King had married five years after the death of Claude in 1525, became the centre of the pro-Hapsburg party at the court

He held the office once occupied by de Boisy and, finally, that which the traitor Bourbon had forfeited

the King’s death in 1547

In the last years of the reign the glories of the new monarchy seemed tarnished and outworn

bowed to the zealots of the Sorbonne and aped the gallant ways of his youth

On the accession of his cousin Louis XII in 1498, Francis became heir presumptive and was given the Duchy of Valois.

Louis XII, distrustful of Francis, did not allow him to dabble in affairs of state but sent him off at the age of 18 to the frontiers

The pomp of the Reims coronation, the sumptuous cortege of the solemn entry into Paris, and the lavish feasts revealed his love of ceremony and also pleased the people of Paris, who had been disheartened by a long succession of morose and sickly sovereigns.

Ambitious for glory and urged on by turbulent young nobles, he made sure of peace with his neighbours, entrusted the regency to his mother, and galloped off to Italy.

He also signed a perpetual peace treaty with the Swiss and bought back Tournai from Henry VIII of England.

Princess Louise, was affianced to the Habsburg prince Charles, heir to the Netherlands and, at 16, the new king of Spain.

Everything forecast a great reign. Francis I formed a brilliant and scholarly court at which poets, musicians, and learned men mingled

he was the most powerful sovereign in all Christendom when, in 1519, the German emperor Maximilian died. The election as emperor of Maximilian’s grandson Charles spelled ruin for Francis I, for Charles, who was already king of Spain, now encircled France with his possessions.

the Emperor had his mind set on a universal monarchy. His chief obstacle was the King of France. A mortal hatred emerged from this rivalry

In 1520, on the Field of Cloth of Gold near Calais, where both displayed unprecedented magnificence, Francis vainly sought an alliance with Henry VIII.

The King, unconcerned, arose late, paid little attention to his council, and gave orders without seeing that they were carried out. Money disappeared into thin air. A few paymasters were hanged, though in vain.

In 1523 the King demanded the return to the French state, according to law, of the vast provinces that the great feudal duke Charles de Bourbon thought he had inherited from his wife.

the French, weary of the prodigality of their sovereign, would rise up on an appeal from him.

At the Battle of Pavia in 1525, defeated and wounded, he was taken prisoner.

As the price for the King’s freedom, the Emperor demanded one-third of France, the renunciation of France’s claim to Italy, and restitution to Bourbon of his fiefs

Although Francis finally recovered, he did not cease to suffer.

Their raging hatred impelled Charles and Francis to challenge each other to a duel, which was, however, prevented. During one of the King’s relapses, his mother reached an agreement with Margaret of Austria, the Emperor’s aunt, to stop this deadly struggle.

His foolish expenditures had emptied the treasury, and the ransom was collected only with difficulty.

In 1531 the King’s mother succumbed to the plague. Marguerite, having married the King of Navarre, lived at some distance.

The war with Charles V was resumed in 1536.