KING CHARLES, OBTAINING A VICTORY AT SARAGOSSA, ENTERS MADRID.
The campaign on the Rhine was productive of no military event; nor was anything of consequence transacted in Piedmont. The duke of Savoy being indisposed and out of humour, the command of the forces still continued vested in count Thaun, who endeavoured to pass the Alps, and penetrated into Dauphiné; but the duke of Berwick had cast up intrenchments in the mountains, and taken such precautions to guard them, as baffled all the attempts of the Imperial general. Spain was much more fruitful of military incidents. The horse and dragoons in the army of king Charles, headed by general Stanhope, attacked the whole cavalry of the enemy at Almennara. Stanhope charged in person, and with his own hand slew general Amessaga, who commanded the guards of Philip. The Spanish horse were entirely routed, together with nine battalions that escaped by favour of the darkness; and the main body of the army retired with precipitation to Lerida. General Starem-berg pursued them to Saragossa, where he found them drawn up in order of battle; and an engagement ensuing on the ninth day of August, the enemy were totally defeated: five thousand of their men were killed, seven thousand taken, together with all their artillery, and a great number of colours and standards. King Charles entered Saragossa in triumph, while Philip with the wreck of his army retreated to Madrid. Having sent his queen and son to Vittoria, he retired to Valladolid, in order to collect his scattered forces so as to form another army. The good fortune of Charles was of short duration. Stanhope proposed that he should immediately secure Pampeluna, the only pass by which the French king could send troops to Spain; but this salutary scheme was rejected. King Charles proceeded to Madrid, which was deserted by all the grandees; and he had the mortification to see that the Castilians were universally attached to his competitor.
BATTLE OF VILLAVICIOSA.
While his forces continued cantoned in the neighbourhood of Toleda, the king of France, at the request of Philip, sent the duke de Vendôme to take the command of the Spanish army, which was at the same time reinforced by detachments of French troops. Vendôme’s reputation was so high, and his person so beloved by the soldiery, that his presence was almost equivalent to an army. A great number of volunteers immediately assembled to signalize themselves under the eye of this renowned general. The Castilians were inspired with fresh courage, and made surprising efforts in favour of their sovereign; so that in less than three months after his defeat at Saragossa, he was in a condition to go in quest of his rival. Charles, on the other hand, was totally neglected by the courts of Vienna and Great Britain, which took no steps to supply his wants, or enable him to prosecute the advantages he had gained. In the beginning of November his army marched back to Saragossa, and was cantoned in the neighbourhood of Cifuentes, where Staremberg established his head-quarters. General Stanhope, with the British forces, was quartered in the little town of Brihuega, where, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, he found himself suddenly surrounded by the whole Spanish army. As the place was not tenable, and he had very little ammunition, he was obliged, after a short but vigorous resistance, to capitulate and surrender himself and all his forces prisoners of war, to the amount of two thousand men, including three lieutenant-generals, one major-general, one brigadier, with all the colonels and officers of the respective regiments. He was greatly censured for having allowed himself to be surprised; for if he had placed a guard upon the neighbouring hills, according to the advice of general Carpenter, he might have received notice of the enemy’s approach in time enough to retire to Cifuentes. Thither he had detached his aide-camp with an account of his situation on the appearance of the Spanish army; and Staremberg immediately assembled his forces. About eleven in the forenoon, they began to march towards Brihuega; but the roads were so bad that night overtook them before they, reached the heights in the neighbourhood of that place. Staremberg is said to have loitered away his time unnecessarily, from motives of envy to the English general, who had surrendered before his arrival. The troops lay all night on their arms near Villaviciosa, and on the twenty-ninth were attacked by the enemy, who doubled their number. Staremberg’s left wing was utterly defeated, all the infantry that composed it having been either cut in pieces or taken; but the victors instead of following up the blow began to plunder the baggage; and Staremberg with his right wing fought their left with surprising valour and perseverance till night. Then they retired in disorder, leaving him master of the field of battle and of all their artillery. Six thousand of the enemy were killed on the spot; but the allies had suffered so severely that the general could not maintain his ground. He ordered the cannon to be nailed up, and marched to Saragossa, from whence he retired to Catalonia. Thither he was pursued by the duke de Vendôme, who reduced Belaguer, in which he had left a garrison, and compelled him to take shelter under the walls of Barcelona. At this period the duke de Noailles invested Gironne, which he reduced notwithstanding the severity of the weather; so that Philip, from a fugitive, became in three months absolute master of the whole Spanish monarchy, except the province of Catalonia, and even that lay open to his incursions. Nothing of consequence was achieved on the side of Portugal, from whence the earl of Galway returned to England by the queen’s permission. The operations of the British fleet, during this summer, were so inconsiderable as scarce to deserve notice. Sir John Norris commanded in the Mediterranean, and with a view to support the Camisars, who were in arms in the Cevennois, sailed to Port Cette, within a league of Marseilles, and at the distance of fifteen from the insurgents. The place surrendered, without opposition, to about seven hundred men that landed under the command of major-general Suissan, a native of Languedoc. He likewise made himself master of the town and castle of Eyde; but the duke de Noailles advancing with a body of forces to join the duke de Roquelaire, who commanded in those parts, the English abandoned their conquests, and re-embarked with precipitation. After the battle of Poultowa the czar of Muscovy reduced all Livonia; but he and king Augustus agreed to a neutrality for Pomerania. The king of Sweden continued at Bender, and the grand seignor interested himself so much in favour of that prince, as to declare war against the emperor of Russia. Hostilities were carried on between the Swedish and Danish fleets with various success. The malcontents in Hungary sustained repeated losses during the summer; but they were encouraged to maintain the war by the rupture between the Ottoman Porte and Russia. They were flattered with hopes of auxiliaries from the Turks; and expected engineers and money from the French monarch.
ANNE, 1701—1714
THE WHIG MINISTRY DISGRACED.
In England, the effects of those intrigues which had been formed against the whig ministers began to appear. The trial of Sacheverel had excited a popular spirit of aversion to those who favoured the dissenters. From all parts of the kingdom addresses were presented to the queen, censuring all resistance as a rebellious doctrine, founded upon anti-monarchial and republican principles. At the same time counter-addresses were procured by the whigs, extolling the revolution and magnifying the conduct of the present parliament. The queen began to express her attachment to the tories, by mortifying the duke of Marlborough. Upon the death of the earl of Essex, she wrote to the general desiring that the regiment which had been commanded by that nobleman should be given to Mr. Hill, brother to Mrs. Masham, who had supplanted the duchess of Marlborough in the queen’s friendship, and was, in effect, the source of this political revolution. The duke represented to her majesty in person, the prejudice that would redound to the service from the promotion of such a young officer over the heads of a great many brave men, who had exhibited repeated proofs of valour and capacity. He expostulated with his sovereign on this extraordinary mark of partial regard to the brother of Mrs. Masham, which he could not help considering as a declaration against himself and his family, who had so much cause to complain of that lady’s malice and ingratitude. To this remonstrance the queen made no other reply, but that he would do well to consult his friends. The earl of Godolphin enforced his friend’s arguments, though without effect; and the duke retired in disgust to Windsor. The queen appeared at council without taking the least notice of his absence, which did not fail to alarm the whole whig faction. Several noblemen ventured to speak to her majesty on the subject, and explain the bad consequences of disobliging a man who had done such eminent services to the nation. She told them his services were still fresh in her memory; and that she retained all her former kindness for his person. Hearing, however, that a popular clamour was raised, and that the house of commons intended to pass some votes that would be disagreeable to her and her new counsellors, she ordered the earl of Godolphin to write to the duke to dispose of the regiment as he should think proper, and return to town immediately. Before he received this intimation, he had sent a letter to the queen desiring she would permit him to retire from business. In answer to this petition, she assured him his suspicions were groundless, and insisted upon his coming to council. The duchess demanded an audience of her majesty, on pretence of vindicating her own character from some aspersions. She hoped to work upon the queen’s tenderness, and retrieve the influence she had lost. She protested, argued, wept, and supplicated; but the queen was too well pleased with her own deliverance from the tyranny of the other’s friendship, to incur such slavery for the future. All the humiliation of the duchess served only to render herself the more contemptible. The queen heard her without exhibiting the least sign of emotion, and all she would vouchsafe, was a repetition of these words—“You desired no answer, and you shall have none;” alluding to an expression in a letter she had received from the duchess. As an additional mortification to the ministry, the office of lord chamberlain was transferred from the duke of Kent to the duke of Shrewsbury, who had lately voted with the tories, and maintained an intimacy of correspondence with Mr. Harley. The interest of the duke of Marlborough was not even sufficient to prevent the dismissal of his own son-in-law, the earl of Sunderland, from the post of secretary of state, in which he was succeeded by lord Dartmouth.
The queen was generally applauded for thus asserting her just prerogative, and setting herself free from an arbitrary cabal, by which she had been so long kept in dependence. The duke of Beaufort went to court on this occasion, and told her majesty he was extremely glad that he could now salute her queen in reality. The whole whig party were justly alarmed at these alterations. The directors of the bank represented to her majesty the prejudice that would undoubtedly accrue to public credit from a change of the ministry. The emperor and the states-general interposed in this domestic revolution. Their ministers at London presented memorials, explaining in what manner foreign affairs would be influenced by an alteration in the British ministry. The queen assured them, that, whatever changes might be made, the duke of Marlborough should be continued in his employments. In the month of August the earl of Godolphin was divested of his office, and the treasury put in commission, subjected to the direction of Harley, appointed chancellor of the exchequer and under-treasurer. The earl of Rochester was declared president of the council in the room of lord Somers; the staff of lord steward being taken from the duke of Devonshire, was given to the duke of Buckingham; and Mr. Boyle was removed from the secretary’s office to make way for Mr. Henry St. John. The lord chancellor having resigned the great seal, it was first put in commission, and afterwards given to sir Simon Harcourt. The earl of Wharton surrendered his commission of lord-lieutenant of Ireland, which the queen conferred on the duke of Ormond. The earl of Orford withdrew himself from the board of admiralty; and Mr. George Granville was appointed secretary of war in the room of Mr. Eobert Walpole. The command of the forces in Portugal was bestowed upon the earl of Portmore; the duke of Hamilton was appointed lord-lieutenant of the county palatine of Lancaster. In a word, there was not one whig left in any office of state, except the duke of Marlborough, who would have renounced his command, had not he been earnestly dissuaded by his particular friends from taking such a step as might have been prejudicial to the interests of the nation. That the triumph of the tories might be complete, the queen dissolved the whig parliament, after such precautions were taken as could not fail to influence the new election in favour of the other party.