Outlines of Universal History, Designed as a Text-book and for Private Reading - George Park Fisher

EVENTS OF THE WAR.—In this war, there were displayed the military talents of two great generals,—the Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene of Savoy. Marlborough had two glaring faults, He was avaricious, and, like other prominent public men in England at that day, was double-faced. After deserting the service of James for that of William, he still kept up at times a correspondence with the exiled house. He was a man of stately and winning presence, a careful commander, in battle cool and self-possessed. At the council board, he had the art of quietly composing differences by winning all to an adhesion to his own views. It is said of him, that he "never committed a rash act, and never missed an opportunity for striking an effective blow." Eugene, on his father's side, sprang from the house of Savoy. His mother was a niece of Mazarin. He was brought up at the court of Louis XIV.; but when the king repeatedly refused him a commission in the army, he entered the service of Austria, was employed in campaigns against the Turks, and rose to the highest distinction. Flattering offers from Louis XIV. he indignantly rejected. His career as a soldier was long and brilliant. The personal sympathy of Eugene and Marlborough with each other was one important cause of their success. Eugene was first sent to Italy. There he drove Catinat, the French general, back on Milan, and captured his successor in command, Villeroi (1702). After a drawn battle between Eugene and Vendome (1702), a commander of much more skill than his predecessor, the French had the advantage in Italy. In 1703, Eugene came to Germany, and Marlborough invaded the Spanish Netherlands. In 1704 Marlborough carried out the plan of a grand campaign which he had devised. He crossed the Rhine at Cologne, moved southward, captured Donauwörth, and drove the Bavarians across the Danube. The united forces of Marlborough and Eugene defeated the French and Bavarian armies at Blenheim (or Hochstädt), on the left bank of the river, with great slaughter. There were captured fifteen thousand French soldiers, with their general Tallard. This victory raised Marlborough's reputation, already great on account of his masterly conduct of his army, to the highest point. He was made a duke by Queen Anne, and a prince of the Empire by Leopold. In Spain, the English captured Gibraltar. Charles of Austria (who had assumed the title of Charles III. of Spain) conquered Madrid (1706), but held it for only a short time. The country generally favored Philip; the arms of Vendome were triumphant; and Aragon, Catalonia, and Valencia had to submit to Castilian laws as the penalty of their adhesion to the Austrian cause. In 1706 Marlborough vanquished Villeroi at Ramillies, a village in the Netherlands, in a great battle in which the French army was routed, and their banners and war material captured. The Netherlands submitted to Austria. At Turin, Eugene gained a victory over an army of eighty thousand men; and the fame of this modest and unpretending, but brave and skillful leader was now on a level with that of the English general. Lombardy submitted to Charles III., and the French were excluded from Italy. Another victory of the two commanders at Oudenarde (1708) over Vendome and the Duke of Burgundy, broke down the hopes of Louis, and moved him to offer the largest concessions, which embraced the giving up of Strasburg and of Spain. But the allies, flushed with success, went so far as to demand that he should aid in driving his grandson out of Spain. This roused France, as well as Louis himself, to another grand effort. At Malplaquet, in a bloody conflict, the French were again defeated by Marlborough and Eugene.

TO THE PEACE OF UTRECHT.—Circumstances now favored the vanquished and humbled king of France. The Whig ministry in England, which the victories of Marlborough had kept in office, fell from power (1710); and its enemies, and the enemies of Marlborough, were anxious to weaken him. Anne dismissed from her service the Duchess of Marlborough, a haughty woman of a violent temper. Harley, Earl of Oxford, and St. John, afterwards Viscount Bolingbroke, became the queen's principal ministers. They wished to end the war. The Emperor Joseph (1705-1711), who had succeeded Leopold I., died; so that Charles, if he had acquired Spain, would have restored the vast monarchy of Charles V., and brought in a new source of jealousy and alarm. Negotiations for peace began. Marlborough, who had been guilty of traitorous conduct, was removed from his command, and deprived of all his offices (1712). In 1713 the Peace of Utrecht was concluded between England and France, in which Holland, Prussia, Savoy, and Portugal soon joined. It was followed by the Peace of Rastadt and Baden with the emperor (1714). Spain and Spanish America were left to Philip V., the Bourbon king, with the proviso that the crowns of France and Spain should never be united. France ceded to England Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and the Hudson Bay Territory. Spain ceded to England Gibraltar and Minorca. The Elector of Brandenburg was recognized as King of Prussia. Savoy received the island of Sicily, which was exchanged seven years later for Sardinia, and for the title of king for the duke. Holland gained certain "barrier" fortresses on its border. Austria received the appanages of the Spanish monarchy,—the Spanish Netherlands, Naples, Sardinia, and Milan, but not Sicily. The emperor did not recognize the Bourbons in Spain.

LAST DAYS OF LOUIS XIV.—In the next year after the peace, Louis XIV. died. Within two years (1710-1712) he had lost his son, his grandson the Duke of Burgundy (whom the pious Fenélon had trained), his wife, and his eldest great-grandson, and, two years later (1714), his third grandson, the Duke of Berry. He left France overwhelmed with debt, its resources exhausted, its credit gone, its maritime power prostrate; a land covered with poverty and wretchedness. This was the reward of lawless pride and ambition in a monarch who owed his strength, however, to the sympathy and subservience of the nation.

LAW'S BANK.—During the minority of Louis XV. (1715-1774) Philip, Duke of Orleans, was regent, a man of extraordinary talents, but addicted to shameful debauchery. The opportunity for effective reform was neglected. The most influential minister was Cardinal Dubois, likewise a man of unprincipled character. The state was really bankrupt, when a Scottish adventurer and gambler, John Law, possessed of unusual financial talents, but infected with the economical errors of the time, offered to rescue the national finances by means of a bank, which he was allowed to found, the notes of which were to serve as currency. Almost all the coined money flowed into its coffers; its notes went everywhere in the kingdom, and were taken for government dues; it combined with its business "the Mississippi scheme," or the control of the trade, and almost the sovereignty, in the Mississippi region; it absorbed the privileges of the different companies for trading with the East; finally it took charge of the national mint and the issue of coin, and of the taxation of the kingdom, and it assumed the national debt. The temporary success of the gigantic financial scheme turned the heads of the people, and a fever of speculation ran through all ranks. The crash came, the shares in the bank sunk in value, the notes depreciated; and, in the wrath which ensued upon the general bankruptcy, Law, who had been honored and courted by the high and the low, fled from the kingdom. He died in poverty at Venice. The state alone was a gainer by having escaped from a great part of its indebtedness.

ITALY.—Before the middle of the eighteenth century, the Spanish Bourbons again had possession of Naples and Sicily, besides other smaller Italian states. Austria, besides holding Milan, was the virtual ruler of Tuscany.

SPAIN IN ITALY.—Philip V. was afflicted with a mental derangement peculiar to his family. The government was managed by the ambitious queen, Elizabeth of Parma, and the intriguing Italian, Alberoni, the minister in whom she confided. He sought to get back the Italian states lost by the Peace of Utrecht. But Sardinia and Sicily were restored when he was overthrown, through the fear excited by the Quadruple Alliance of France, England, Austria, and Holland (1718). Later, the queen succeeded in obtaining the kingdom of Naples and Sicily for her oldest son, Don Carlos, under the name of Charles III. Parma, Piacenza, and Guastalla, she gained for her second son, Philip (1735). When Charles succeeded to the Spanish throne (1759-1788), he left Naples and Sicily to his third son, Ferdinand.

AUSTRIA IN ITALY.—The house of Savoy steadily advanced in power. By the Peace of Ryswick, Victor Amadeus II. (1675-1730), secured important places previously gained. He became "King of Sardinia" (1720). By him the University of Turin was founded, and the administration of justice much improved. His next two successors carried forward this good work. Venice lost Morea to the Turks, but retained Corfu and her conquests in Dalmatia (1718). Liberty was gone, and there was decay and conscious weakness in the once powerful republic. Genoa was coveted by Savoy, Austria, and France. The consequent struggles are the material of Genoese history for a long period. Corsica was oppressed, and Genoa called on France to lend help in suppressing its revolt (1736). The Corsicans especially, under Paoli, defended themselves with such energy that France found its work of subjugation hard and slow (1755). The island was ceded to France by Genoa(1768). Milan, with Mantua, was Austrian, after the Peace of Utrecht (1713). Tuscany under Ferdinand II. (1628-1670) bestowed its treasure on Austria and Spain, and fell under the sway of ecclesiastics. Under Cosmo III. (1670-1723), the process of decline went on. After the death of the last of the Medici, John Gasto (1737), Tuscany was practically under the power of Austria, notwithstanding the stipulation that both states should not have the same ruler. It was governed by Francis Stephen (1738-1765), Duke of Lorraine, husband of the Empress Maria Theresa; and, when he became emperor (Francis I.), by his second son, Leopold (1765-1790). At Rome, Pope Innocent XI. (1676-1689) had many conflicts with Louis XVI. which came to an end under the well-meaning Innocent XII. (1691-1700). Contests arose on the part of Rome against the Bourbon courts respecting the Jesuit order, and with the forces adverse to the Church and the Papacy, in the closing part of the eighteenth century. In 1735, the Emperor Charles VI. allowed that Naples and Sicily should be handed over, as a kingdom, to Don Carlos, the son of the Spanish Bourbon king, under the name of Charles III., by whom it was granted to his son Ferdinand IV. (1759).

CLOSE OF ANNE'S REIGN.—Anne's husband, Prince George of Denmark, had no influence, and deserved none. One of the important events of her reign was the Union of England and Scotland in 1707 (p. 461). After the Tories came into power, the two leaders, Oxford and Bolingbroke, were rivals. An angry dispute between them hastened the queen's death (1714). One of the Tory measures, prompted by hostility to Dissenters, was a law forbidding any one to keep a school without a license from a bishop.

REIGN OF GEORGE I.—George I., the first king of the house of Hanover, could not speak English. His private life was immoral. His first ministers were Whigs. Bolingbroke and Oxford were impeached, and fled the country. The "Pretender," James Edward (son of James II.), with the aid of Tory partisans, endeavored to recover the English crown. His standard was raised in the Highlands and in North England (1715), but this Jacobite rebellion was crushed. After the rebellion of 1715, a law was passed, which is still in force, allowing a Parliament to continue for the term of seven years. A second conspiracy in 1717 had the same fate. England had an experience analogous to that of France with Law, with the South Sea Company, which had a monopoly of trade with the Spanish coasts of South America. A rage for speculation was followed by a panic. The estates of the directors of the company were confiscated by Parliament for the benefit of the losers. Robert Walpole was made first minister, a place which he held under George I. and George II. for twenty-one years. William and Anne had attended the meetings of the Cabinet. George I., who could not speak English, staid away. From this time, one of the ministers was called the "prime minister."