A European quarrel over the succession to the Spanish throne,[287] on the death of the imbecile King Charles the Second, had long been foreseen by William, and had been provided against, as he hoped, by a Partition Treaty in the year 1698. The arrangement then made had been upset by the death of the Electoral Prince of Bavaria, and had been superseded¹ by a second Partition Treaty in March 1700. In November of the same year King Charles the Second died, leaving a will wherein Philip, Duke of Anjou, and second son of the Dauphin, was named heir to the whole Empire of Spain. At this the second Partition Treaty went for naught². Lewis the Fourteenth, after a becoming interval³ of hesitation⁴, accepted the Spanish crown for the Duke of Anjou under the title of King Philip the Fifth.
1701.

The Emperor at once entered a protest against the[398] will, and Lewis prepared without delay for a campaign in Italy. William, however, for the present merely postponed⁶ his recognition of Philip the Fifth; and his example was followed by the United Provinces. Lewis, ever ready and prompt, at once took measures to quicken the States to a decision. Several towns[288] in Spanish Flanders were garrisoned⁸, under previous treaties, by Dutch troops. Lewis by a swift movement surrounded the whole of them, and having thus secured fifteen thousand of the best men in the Dutch army, could dictate⁹ what terms he pleased. William expected that the House of Commons would be roused to indignation by this aggressive step, but the House was far too busy with its own factious¹⁰ quarrels. When, however, the States appealed to England for the ten thousand men, which under the treaty of 1677 she was bound to furnish, both Houses prepared faithfully to fulfil the obligation.

Then, as invariably happens in England, the work which Parliament had

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