Ministerial changes.
It is a curious testimony to the survival of the personal power of the sovereign in England, that Anne's predilection for the two Churchills changed the face of domestic politics on her accession. During William's life, they had been eyed with distrust; now they became the most important personages in the realm. The queen dismissed most of the Whig ministers who had been in power when her brother-in-law died, and filled their places with Tories, or rather with friends and adherents of Churchill, who, though he called himself a Tory, was in reality a pure self-seeker who cared nothing for either party. The chief minister was Lord Godolphin, whose son had married Churchill's daughter, as shifty a politician as any of his contemporaries. He had long maintained a fruitless intrigue with the exiled Stuarts, but, when he came into power, dropped his correspondence with St. Germains, and ultimately became a Whig.
Policy of Churchill and Godolphin.
It was fortunate for England that Churchill and Godolphin were as clever as they were selfish. Though personally they were mere greedy adventurers, yet their policy was the best that could have been found. Churchill's military ambition made him anxious to proceed with the war which William III. had begun. The complete mastery over the queen which his wife possessed, made him firmly resolved to keep Anne on the throne at all costs. Hence there was no change either in the foreign or domestic policy of England: the new ministry were as much committed to maintaining the Protestant succession and the French war as their predecessors, though almost every individual among them had at one time or another held treasonable communications with James II.
Completion of the alliance against France.
The great alliance, therefore, which William III. had done his best to organize, was completed by the Godolphin cabinet, England, Holland, Austria, and most of the smaller states of the Empire bound themselves to frustrate the union of France and Spain, and to secure the inheritance of Charles II. for his namesake, the Austrian archduke. Portugal and Savoy joined the alliance ere the year was out.
Position and resources of Lewis XIV.
On the other side, Lewis XIV. had the support of Spain: for the first time for two centuries the Spaniards and French were found fighting side by side. Only a small minority of the people of the Peninsula refused to accept Philip of Anjou as their rightful sovereign, and adhered to the archduke; this minority consisted of the Catalans, the inhabitants of the sea-coast of North-Eastern Spain, who had an old grievance against their kings for depriving them of certain local rights and privileges. By reason of the Spanish alliance, Lewis started on the war in complete military possession of two most important frontier regions, the Milanese in Italy, and the whole of the Spanish Netherlands (Belgium) in the North. He had also a strong position in Germany, owing to the fact that he had secured the alliance of those powerful princes, the Elector of Bavaria and the Prince-archbishop of Cologne, two brothers of the house of Wittelsbach who had an old family grudge against the Emperor.
War had been declared by England and her allies in 1702, but it was not till 1703 that important operations began. They were waged simultaneously on four separate theatres—the Spanish Netherlands, South Germany, North Italy, and Spain. It appeared at first as if Lewis XIV. was to be the aggressor; from his points of vantage in Alsace, Milan, Bavaria, and the Spanish Netherlands, he seemed about to push forward against Holland and Austria. But he had now to cope with two generals such as no French army had ever faced—the Emperor's great captain, Prince Eugéne of Savoy; and the wary Churchill, now, by Queen Anne's favour, commander-in-chief of the English and the Dutch armies.
The campaign of 1703.