General Stanhope on the 27th of July, defeated the French and Spanish armies at Almenara, and afterwards greatly contributed to gaining the great victory of Saragossa; on this occasion the marquis de Bay was so completely beaten by the count de Staremberg, that Philip the Vth was obliged to quit Madrid, and the archduke entered the capital without striking a blow. No monarch, however, ever met with a worse reception from his subjects; they treated him with every possible mark of aversion, avoiding his sight, shutting themselves up in their own apartments, and even disdaining to pick up the money he threw into the streets. All his endeavours were fruitless to extort the oath of allegiance from several of the nobility, and having commanded the marquis de Mancera,[34] president of the council of Castille, an old man turned of a hundred years of age, to come and kiss his hand, he received the following reply: “I have but one faith and one king, which is Philip the Vth to whom I have sworn allegiance. I acknowledge the archduke as a great prince, but not as my sovereign, and having lived a hundred years without failing in any of my duties; I will not, for the short space of time I have yet to pass in this world, blast my spotless reputation by a dishonourable action.”
The archduke, irritated at such opposition, proposed giving up the town to be pillaged, but the generous Stanhope representing the cruelty as well as impolicy of such vengeance, “Well,” replied Charles, “if we cannot plunder the city, let us at least quit it.” If, indeed, the approach of the duke de Vendôme had not made this retreat necessary, circumstances alone must, sooner or later, have forced the archduke to take this step; since both he and his partizans began to perceive the impossibility of preserving a crown, which the people were decided, at the risk of their lives and properties, to replace on the head of him whom they had acknowledged as its lawful possessor. The reverse of fortune which Philip had experienced, far from weakening the attachment of the Spaniards, had very much contributed to increase it; so great, indeed, was the affection they bore him, that they preferred burning their provisions to selling them to his enemies. Such conduct gave rise to Stanhope’s remark, “that a victorious army might indeed march through Spain, but that it required a still stronger one to keep possession of it.”
If a retreat through a country so ill disposed towards Charles, was in itself so dangerous, how infinitely more so must it be on the arrival of such an enemy as the duke de Vendôme, who, having reconducted Philip to Madrid, on the 3d of December, went immediately in pursuit of the archduke and Stanhope, who were making every possible effort to regain Portugal.
Vendôme, having swam his troops across the Tagus, attacked general Stanhope, who was shut up in Briguegua, and on the 9th of December forced him to surrender himself prisoner, together with 5000 English. His success did not stop here, for having joined the count de Staremberg the same day at Villaviciosa, he, the following one, gave the battle which is known in history by the name of the above-mentioned place.
Philip the Vth, who had not hitherto joined his generals in the field of battle, commanded, on that day, the right wing of his army, whilst the duke de Vendôme appeared at the head of the left: and thus a victory was obtained which ended all conflicts, and put him in the unrivalled possession of the crown of Spain. It was after this engagement that Philip, being unprovided with a bed, Vendôme exclaimed, “I will presently form you the most glorious bed on which a sovereign ever slept;” and he gave orders that a mattress should be made of the standards and colours taken from the enemy.
The defeat at Villaviciosa having placed the Portugueze in a most critical situation, it was thought highly necessary, in 1711, to defend their own frontiers as much as possible, without ever attempting to attack those of their neighbours. The intelligence received of the capture of Rio Janeiro by Guy Trouin, cut off every hope of carrying on the war any longer. This place surrendered after eleven days siege, on the 23d of September, and the loss on this occasion was estimated at twenty-five millions of French livres; which made it impossible for Brazil (for some time at least) to furnish supplies to the mother country: a circumstance the more to be regretted, as Portugal never stood in greater need of assistance.
A peace was now their only resource, and an unexpected event took place, which not only gave them an opening to make propositions, but accelerated the negociations. The emperor Joseph dying, the archduke Charles succeeded him in the imperial dignity; and from that moment it became contrary to the interest, not only of the allies, but of the whole of Europe, to place the crown of Spain upon his head. To preserve the balance of power had been the pretext alledged for the war, which could certainly never have been maintained, had the vast possessions of the emperor Charles the Vth been once more united under the dominion of one and the same person. The real and only motive, however, for this war, appears to be the ancient hatred entertained against the name of Louis the Great.
In the course of this same year (1711) France began to enter into correspondence with England: the duke of Marlborough had been recalled by the court of St. James’s, whose views tended towards peace, in as high a degree as his led towards war. In this situation of affairs the Portugueze had the prudence to attach themselves more closely than ever to the interests of Great Britain: they were accordingly admitted to the conferences held at Utrecht, on the 29th of January, 1712, and on the 11th of April, in the same year, France made peace by five different treaties; the first with England, signed at three o’clock in the afternoon; the second with the duke of Savoy, at four o’clock; the third with the king of Portugal, at eight; the fourth with the king of Prussia, at midnight; and the fifth with the States-General, at a quarter past one the next morning.
By the treaty with Portugal, France engaged that Spain should lay no claim to any part of that country; and at the same time renounced her pretensions on the river of the Amazons. Nothing now remained for the tranquillity of John the Vth, but to conclude peace with Philip the Vth, and all difficulties being done away by the mediation of the court of Versailles, it was at last signed at Utrecht, on the 13th of February, 1715.
The people of Portugal, thus delivered from the horrors of war, remained in the greatest tranquillity during the reign of John the Vth, who never took the smallest part in any war, except that which arose between the Ecclesiastical States, the Venetians, and Turks, shortly after the peace of Utrecht. On this occasion the king of Portugal sent out a squadron to assist the former; and the pope, in acknowledgment of so essential a service, divided the archbishopric of Lisbon into two dioceses, and raised the royal chapel to the dignity of a metropolitan, patriarchal church: since which time the city of Lisbon has been separated into two great districts, distinguished by the name of eastern and western.