It was on this day 327 years ago, on 25 October 1692, that a future queen of Spain was born.

The baby girl was Isabel Farnese, the only surviving child of Odoardo Farnese, himself the eldest son of the reigning Duke of Parma, Ranuccio II. Her mother was Dorothea Sophie, Princess Palatine. When Odoardo died, predeceasing his father, Dorothea Sophie married his younger brother, Francesco, who was the new heir to the throne. In other words, baby Isabel’s uncle was also her stepfather. When Ranuccio II died in 1694, Isabel’s uncle/stepfather and mother became the new Duke and Duchess of Parma. Since they had no children, and the youngest brother of the family, Antonio, also had only a daughter, it became accepted that Isabel would eventually inherit the duchy. To that end, she was carefully educated.

Unsurprisingly, she had many suitors. After the early death of Felipe V of Spain’s wife in 1714, Isabel was proposed as his new bride. The power behind the Spanish throne, the Princess des Ursins, backed Isabel because of reports that the young princess was easily led. Nothing could have been further from the truth. On her arrival in Spain, Isabel immediately sacked des Ursins and had her deported to France. Felipe V fell in love with Isabel at their first meeting and was soon completely dominated by her. In essence, it was Isabel who ruled Spain until Felipe’s death in 1746.

Frustratingly for Isabel, Felipe’s first wife had left 2 sons, both of whom came before her own sons in the line of succession. In compensation, Isabel fought to have her eldest son, Carlos, made Duke of Parma after the death of Duke Antonio and his only (unmarried and childless) daughter. In fact, Carlos did considerably better. After a good showing in the War of the Polish Succession (1733-1736), which was really about Italy, Carlos bagged the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily. Isabel finally managed to secure her ancestral inheritance when she manoeuvred her younger son, another Felipe, onto the throne of Parma in 1748.

Isabel lived long enough to see her childless stepson, Ferdinand VI, die in 1759, thus making Carlos of Naples and Sicily King of Spain as Carlos III. He duly abdicated his Italian thrones to his son in order to take up his new Spanish one. Isabel served as regent while waiting for him to arrive.

Isabel died, presumably satisfied by the achievement of her life’s ambitions, in 1766.

In some ways, the Kingdom of New Spain, centred in what we now call Mexico, was at its height in the Versailles Century (1682-1789).

It certainly reached its greatest territorial extent in the 1700s, as the map below illustrates.

By Eddo – Own workFile:BlankMap-World-90W.svgFile:New Spain.pngFile:Nueva España 1795.pngFile:Spanish Provinces in the Pacific.png, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11435488

The light green areas represent the last areas to be claimed by the Spanish before the onset of the Napoleonic Wars and the War of Independence, which resulted in the collapse of Spanish rule and Mexico’s independence in 1821, not to mention that of the other countries of Central and South America.

With Part 6, which covers the years 1710 to 1714, we conclude our series of posts on the War of the Spanish Succession.

In 1710, Louis XIV’s luck began to turn.  He sent a new army into Spain to help Felipe V.  In command was the Duc de Vendôme, this time without the Duc de Bourgogne to get in his way.  Left to his own lights, the old duke defeated the Anglo-Austrian forces and drove them out of Spain by the end of the year.  He returned to Versailles covered in glory and left Felipe V firmly on the Spanish throne once and for all.

The fighting season of 1706 had ended very badly for France, with its armies driven out of Flanders and in retreat everywhere else.  The Archduke Charles, with an Anglo-Austrian army behind him, had even taken Madrid and been proclaimed king as Carlos III, one of the main objectives of the War of the Spanish Succession.  In short, Louis XIV and his allies were beaten to their knees.

Peace Offer

So parlous was the state of France that Louis, for the first time in his career, sued for peace.  He offered to surrender his Flemish fortresses to the Dutch and to recognize the Archduke Charles as King of Spain on the condition that his grandson Felipe V be allowed to keep Sicily, Naples, and Milan.  The Grand Alliance was not impressed, except for the Dutch, whose aims had been achieved for them by Marlborough’s victories. England, Austria and the allied German states, however, scented blood and were determined to bring France low.  The war continued.

Today we bring you Part 4 of the War of the Spanish Succession.  In Part 3, we saw that war was officially declared on France and Spain by England, the United Provinces (today’s Netherlands), and Austria in the spring 1702.

The States of Europe Take Sides

In the beginning, France and Spain faced Europe alone.  They were soon joined by Bavaria, whose Elector still believed that his late son, Prince Joseph Ferdinand, the designated heir to the Spanish throne in the late 1690s, had been poisoned by Austrian agents.  The Elector of Cologne also signed on.  The last addition to the team was Savoy. It should perhaps be explained that the duchy of Savoy was an independent state at this time.  Its duke also possessed the principality of Piedmont and ruled from its capital, Turin.  The Duke of Savoy was more or less obligated to support France and Spain because one of his daughters was married to the Duc de Bourgogne, third in line in to the French throne as the eldest grandson of Louis XIV, and another daughter was married to Bourgogne’s younger brother, the newly minted Felipe V of Spain.  Savoy was an unreliable ally, however.  Nancy Mitford remarks in her biography of Louis XIV, The Sun King, that Duke Vittorio Amadeo was famous for never finishing a war on the same side that he started on.  On the whole, it was an underwhelming team.  Apart from Savoy’s unreliability, there was the problem of Spain’s near bankruptcy and general weakness. The Elector of Bavaria was a solid ally, but lacked resources.  Cologne, of course, was too insignificant to make much of a difference.  France would have to shoulder most of the financial and military burden itself.

Those who have been following this series from the beginning will recognize the map below because I used it in Part 1.  It may be helpful here in Part 4, too, so I’m reproducing it again.

Europe in 1700. Credit: Wikipedia.

On the other side, the Grand Alliance, as the England-United Provinces-Austria axis called itself, was joined by Portugal, Brandenburg-Prussia, Hanover, and various other German states, the most important of which was the Palatinate (German: Pfalz), a Rhineland state on the French border that was coincidentally ruled by another branch of the Bavarian ruling dynasty.  The Palatinate, to the horror of Louis XIV’s sister-in-law, a Palatine princess, had been devastated by French armies in a prior war and was itching for revenge.  It was more or less understood that Austria would supply most of the military muscle on the continent while England and the United Provinces would provide sea power.

When we last left Felipe V, he had just arrived in Madrid, his new capital, on 22 January, 1701, carrying a letter of advice from his grandfather, Louis XIV.  At first, his accession went smoothly, with no war imminent.

The portrait of Felipe V at left hangs in a state room at Versailles, where he was proclaimed King of Spain on 16 November, 1700.

All of the Spanish dominions accepted him as their king.  The nations of Europe did, too, except for Austria.  At the beginning of 1701 it seemed that Felipe V’s accession was a fait accompli.  The calm was not to last, however.

Reader M. Reginald O’Toole (a splendid name) has written via a private message to ask a question about Louis XIV’s letter of advice to his teenaged grandson, the newly-minted Felipe V of Spain.  Did Felipe take his august grandfather’s advice?

I can’t give give an exhaustive, point-by-point answer, but in general, I would say the answer is both yes and no.  Of course, some of Louis XIV’s advice, as mentioned in the last post, is in the spirit of ‘Do as I say, rather than as I do.’  For instance, Louis enjoins his grandson not to have favourites.  This is amusing coming from the monarch who made the role of mistress to the King of France almost an official position.

Felipe is not known to have had any mistresses, so he can be said, in that sense, to have taken his grandfather’s advice.  The Bourbon men were highly sexed.  Even when they were both in their seventies, Louis XIV “honoured” Mme de Maintenon, his second, secret wife, twice a day.  In this regard, Felipe also took Louis’ advice.

A Letter of Advice from Louis XIV to His Grandson, Felipe V of Spain

Having been declared King of Spain on 16 November 1700, Felipe V, formerly Philippe d’Anjou, left Versailles for Spain on 4 December.  He didn’t reach Madrid until 22 January 1701.  Along the way, he would have had plenty of time to read and ponder the letter handed to him by his grandfather on his departure.

Louis XIV had composed a 33-point letter of advice for his teenaged grandson, bringing to bear the experience of his then nearly 6 decades on the French throne, 4 of them as sole ruler.  Some of his advice is in the spirit of ‘Do as I say, not as I do.’  It also reveals some of the Sun King’s notions of kingship.

Felipe V as Philippe d’Anjou, probably just before his accession.

The War of the Spanish Succession was one of the defining events of the Versailles Century (1682-1789).  Today on the blog we’ll examine the background of the conflict.

In the late 1690s, Europe was preoccupied by the question of who was to succeed Spain’s childless king, Carlos II, who was feeble of both mind and body.  Still only in his 30s, he was nonetheless thought to be on his last legs.  Unfortunately for him, his house, the Spanish branch of the Habsburgs, was the most inbred dynasty in the history of Europe.  His own parents, for instance, were uncle and niece.  The most visible outcome of this inbreeding in Carlos II was his deformed jaw, which made it difficult for him to speak and eat.

Charles II of Spain (1661-1700).  Credit: Wikipedia.