Transformations in the culture of international relations around the peace of ultrech

Transformations in the Culture of International Relations Around the Peace of Utrecht Edited by Inken Schmidt-Voges and Ana Crespo Solana Focusing on the years between the end of th

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New Worlds?

The Peace of Utrecht (1713) was perhaps the first political treaty that had

a global impact It not only ended a European-wide conflict, but also led to

a cessation of hostilities on the American continent and Indian nent, as well as naval warfare worldwide More than this, however – as the chapters in this volume clearly demonstrate – the treaty marked an impor-tant step in the development of an integrated worldwide political system

subconti-By reconsidering the preconditions, negotiations and consequences of the Peace of Utrecht – rather than focusing on previous concerns with interna-tional relations and diplomacy – the contributions to this collection help embed events in a richer context of diverging networks, globalising empires, expanding media and changing identities

Several chapters consider the preconditions and challenges to political entities such as the British and Spanish empires and French monarchy, dem-onstrating that far from being nation-states these were conglomerates with diverging forms of affiliation, which developed different modes and inter-ests to face the needs and consequences of the Utrecht negotiations This

“macrostructural” perspective is complemented by chapters that focus on

“microstructural” aspects, considering the personal networks and ships that informed day-to-day actions in Utrecht Both perspectives are then drawn together by further contributions that examine the formation of images and discourses that were intended to identify key individuals with larger political entities and their assumed interests

This approach, combining both broad and more narrowly focused case studies, reveals much about how the diplomatic discussions were framed with political and social contexts In so doing the volume offers new per-spectives concerning the formation of modern Europe at the beginning of the eighteenth century, beyond and yet connected with diplomatic develop-ments and global entanglements

Inken Schmidt-Voges is a Full Professor for Early Modern History of Europe

at the Philipps-University of Marburg in Germany

Ana Crespo Solana is Tenured Scientist at the Consejo Superior de

Investiga-ciones Científicas (CSIC) in Spain

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Politics and Culture in Europe, 1650–1750

Universiteit Utrecht, The Netherlands

For a full list of titles in this series, please visit www.routledge.com

New Worlds?

Transformations in the Culture of International Relations Around

the Peace of Utrecht

Edited by Inken Schmidt-Voges and Ana Crespo Solana

Focusing on the years between the end of the Thirty Years’ War and the end of the War of the Austrian Succession, this series seeks to broaden scholarly knowledge of this crucial period that witnessed the solidification of Europe into centralised nation- states and created a recognisably modern political map Bridging the gap between the early modern period of the Reformation and the eighteenth century of colonial expansion and industrial revolution, these years provide a fascinating era of study

in which nationalism, political dogma, economic advantage, scientific development, cultural and artistic interests and strategic concerns began to compete with religion

as the driving force of European relations and national foreign policies

The period under investigation, the second half of the seventeenth century and the first half of the eighteenth, corresponds with the decline of Spanish power and the rise of French hegemony that was only to be finally broken following the defeat

of Napoleon in 1815 This shifting political power base presented opportunities and dangers for many countries, resulting in numerous alliances between formerly hostile nations attempting to consolidate or increase their international influence, or restrain that of a rival These contests of power were closely bound up with political, cultural and economic issues: particularly the strains of state building, trade competition, religious tension and toleration, accommodating flows of migrants and refugees, the birth pangs of rival absolutist and representative systems of government, radical structures of credit, and new ways in which wider publics interacted with authority Despite this being a formative period in the formation of the European landscape, there has been relatively little research on it compared to the earlier Reformation, and the later revolutionary eras By providing a forum that encourages scholars

to engage with the forces that were shaping the continent – either in a particular country, or taking a transnational or comparative approach – it is hoped a greater understanding of this pivotal era will be forthcoming

New Worlds?

Transformations in the Culture of International Relations Around the Peace of Utrecht

Edited by Inken Schmidt-Voges and Ana Crespo Solana

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First published 2017

by Routledge

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Crespo Solana; individual chapters, the contributors

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Contents

Introduction: New Worlds? Transformations in

the Culture of International Relations Around the

2 The repercussions of the treaties of Utrecht for Spanish

colonial trade and the struggle to retain Spanish America 37 ANA CRESPO SOLANA

3 Continuity and change in Spanish–Dutch relations between

MANUEL HERRERO SÁNCHEZ

4 Disagreement over a peace agreement: The Barrier

Treaty and the conditional transfer of the

KLAAS VAN GELDER

5 Savoyard representatives in Utrecht: Political–aristocratic

networks and the diplomatic modernisation of the state 96 PAOLA BIANCHI

vi Contents

6 Ending a religious cold war: Confessional trans-state

SUGIKO NISHIKAWA

PART II

7 Old worlds, new worlds? Contemporary reflections upon

10 From the warrior king to the peaceful king: Louis

SOLANGE RAMEIX

11 Diverging concepts of peace in German newspapers 1712/1713:

A case study of the Hamburger Relations-Courier 209 INKEN SCHMIDT-VOGES

Notes on contributors

Paola Bianchi has a PhD in History of European Society and is currently

lec-turer at the University of Aosta Valley (Department of Human and Social Sciences), where she teaches History of Europe in the Early Modern Age Recently (2014) she was made associate professor Her main fi elds of interest are ‘new’ military and diplomatic history, history of the courts and their élites (XVII–XVIII centuries), social and cultural history of the Grand Tour, in particular from Great Britain to Savoy-Piedmont She

collaborates with several Italian scholarly reviews (in particular Rivista

storica italiana and Società e storia ) and is part of the scholarly

commit-tee of the series Guerra e pace in età moderna Annali di storia militare

europea (Milan, Franco Angali publisher)

Tony Claydon is Professor of Early Modern History at Bangor University

in Wales He is author of William III and the Godly Revolution

(Cam-bridge University Press, 1996), a study of government propaganda after

the 1689 revolution in England; of Europe and the Making of England,

1660–1760 (Cambridge University Press, 2007), an examination of the

sense of participation by English people in a Protestant international and

in Christendom in the century after the civil war; and of articles on ous aspects of the faith and political culture of late Stuart Britain

Ana Crespo Solana holds a PhD in Geography and History and a Masters

in Latin-American History and has worked as a research fellow in Spain, Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands She has been professor in the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científi cas (CSIC) in Spain from

2007 She has led several research projects on Atlantic Economic and Social History and in Spatial Humanities (European Science Foundation, Spanish National Endowment for Humanities and Marie Curie Actions) and is a member of several editorial and advisory boards and scholarly committees She is the author of eight books and over seventy essays and articles about Spanish colonial trade, merchant communities, European expansion in the Atlantic and GIS tools for the study of the colonial trade with America

viii Notes on contributors

Klaas van Gelder fi nished his PhD on the establishment of Austrian rule in

the Southern Netherlands following the War of the Spanish Succession at Ghent University, Belgium, in 2012 From October 2012 until Septem-ber 2015, he worked as a postdoctoral fellow of the Research Founda-tion Flanders (FWO-Vlaanderen) at the History Department of Ghent University His current research project aims at studying the different reform plans for the central institutional apparatus in the Austrian Neth-erlands and its gradual penetration of formerly autonomous local and

regional administrations His publications include articles in the

Euro-pean Review of History , the Zeitschrift für Historische Forschung and

the Revue d’Histoire moderne et contemporaine

Manuel Herrero-Sanchez teaches at Pablo de Olavide University in Seville

He holds a PhD from the European University Institute in Florence and has taught as a research fellow at the Istituto Benedetto Croce of Naples, the Leiden Center for the History of European Expansion (IGEER), the Vrije Universiteit of Amsterdam, Liège University, Complutense Univer-sity of Madrid and at the Institute of History (CSIC) A specialist in the History of International Relations during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, his research interests focus on the comparative approach to the history of the mercantile republics and on the complex constitution of the Hispanic Monarchy Other areas of research include Atlantic History and models of European expansion

Sugiko Nishikawa took her fi rst degree from the Graduate School of Arts,

Rikkyo University (Tokyo, Japan), and subsequently was a research dent at University College, London, where she obtained her PhD in His-tory in 1998 From 2000 to 2005, she was Associate Professor of Western European History at Kobe University (Kobe, Japan), and since 2005, she has been Associate Professor at the British Section, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, at the University of Tokyo She specialises in the study

stu-of Protestant communications networks in early modern Europe, which expanded from the British Isles to the Baltic and the Mediterranean regions

David Onnekink is Assistant Professor in the History of International

Rela-tions section of the Department of History of the Universiteit Utrecht He

is interested in early modern foreign policy, in particular in connection with

the Dutch Republic and England He is the author of The Anglo-Dutch

Favourite The career of Hans Willem Bentinck, 1st Earl of Portland

(Alder-shot 2007) and co-authored a monograph on the Peace of Utrecht sum 2013) (with Renger de Bruin) He has also edited and co-edited several

(Hilver-volumes of essays, including Ideology and foreign policy in early modern

Europe (1650–1750) (Farnham 2011) (with Gijs Rommelse)

Steve Pincus is Bradford Durfee Professor of History at Yale University He

has published widely on the political, cultural, intellectual and economic

history of early modern Britain and its empire, most recently 1688: The

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Notes on contributors ix First Modern Revolution He is now completing a history of the British

Empire c.1650–c.1784, which seeks to understand the evolution of the British imperial state in comparative perspective

Solange Rameix studied history at Panthéon-Sorbonne University She

com-pleted her PhD on ‘The Language of Just War: Comparing French and English Perspectives on the Nine Years’ War and the War of the Spanish Succession (1688–1713)’ in 2011 She is also a fellow at the ‘Fondation Thiers’ (CNRS) (2009–2012)

Inken Schmidt-Voges teaches early modern history at the Philipps-University

of Marburg Her research interests cover studies on early modern peace processes, combining political, social and cultural history for a more encompassing understanding In this context, she has recently fi nished

a major work on peace semantics and practices in domestic and monial matters in the eighteenth century (Mikropolitiken des Friedens, Berlin 2015) Furthermore, she guided studies on peace as code of politi-cal communication in Sweden c 1600 and is currently leading a research project on ‘media constructions of peace in Europe, 1710–1721’ Further areas of interest are the history of Scandinavia, especially Sweden, the history of the Holy Roman Empire, the history of houses and households

matri-in Early Modern Europe as well as how narratives of collective identity shaped, changed and infl uenced the formation of societies in Europe

Christopher Storrs is Reader in History in the School of Humanities,

Univer-sity of Dundee He has published widely on the Savoyard state, Italy and Spain in the early modern era, including various articles and the mono-

graphs War, Diplomacy and the Rise of Savoy, 1690–1720 (Cambridge, 1999), and The Resilience of the Spanish Monarchy 1665–1700 (Oxford, 2006) He recently edited The Fiscal-Military State in Eighteenth-Century

Europe (Aldershot, 2009) and is currently preparing a monograph on

Spanish policy in the western Mediterranean and Italy in the fi rst half of the eighteenth century and a survey of eighteenth-century Italy

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A bbreviations

AGI Archivo General de Indias, Sevilla

AHN/AHNM Archivo Histórico Nacional, Madrid ARA Algemeen Rijksarchief, Brussels

BL British Library, London

BNE Biblioteca Nacional de España

Bod / Bodleian Bodleian Library, Oxford

BPR Biblioteca del Palacio Real, Madrid

HHStA Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv, Wien

NA Nationaal Archief, The Hague

PRO Public Record Offi ce, London, now the

National Archives, Kew

SP State Papers, The National Archives, Kew SPCK Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge SPG Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in

Foreign Parts TNA The National Archives, Kew

‘The peace will be a general peace, and in this collegio you can get a

com-plex view of Europe’s interconnectedness.’ 1 With these words, the German constitutional lawyer Nicolaus Hieronymus Gundling (1671–1729) pro-moted a lecture in spring 1711 in the university calendar of Halle, a leading institution of early Enlightenment scholarship

Though his prediction of a general peace was not borne out, the ture provided a razor-sharp view of the politics of conflict in 1711, when Europe’s entire political and economic relations were being renegotiated fol-lowing the crisis of the Spanish succession

When the Spanish king, Charles II, died in 1700, the European elites had been concerned with the matter of the Spanish succession for several decades already As Charles II had produced no legitimate heir, two members of the leading dynasties of Habsburg and Bourbon, Archduke Charles of Austria and Philippe of Anjou, claimed entitlement to the heritage This prospect alarmed other European powers like England and the Netherlands, since inheritance

of the vast Spanish Empire with its many estates in Europe and colonial sessions abroad would thus give hitherto unknown power to one of the two dynasties that had been competing for European leadership for two hundred years Several partition scenarios were contrived and fixed in treaties, but Charles II overturned all arrangements by designating Philippe of Anjou as his sole heir on his deathbed By accepting this will for his grandson, Louis XIV automatically broke the partition treaty and provoked the outbreak of the looming war in 1701 England and the States General joined Emperor Leop-old I in fighting for the succession rights of his second son Charles, but they primarily sought to secure their own global trading interests that a fundamen-tal change of system, in the case of a Bourbon succession, would put at risk 2 With his focus on the conflict’s background in trade issues and economic policy, Gundling, too, emphasised the broader context of the struggle, which only a shallow mind would assume to be mere family rivalry In his view, the Dutch Republic and England would support a Habsburg succession not least because of their interest in the Spanish markets for raw materials They would not welcome a French successor ‘as the French would easily change

Introduction

New Worlds? Transformations in

the Culture of International Relations

Around the Peace of Utrecht

Inken Schmidt-Voges and Ana Crespo Solana

2 Inken Schmidt-Voges and Ana Crespo Solana

everything, because they are so inventieus ,’ he claims ‘Austrians are more

used to leaving things as they stand.’ 3 Gundling’s statement shows that temporaries perceived the ongoing conflict as a general conflict touching the very order of a global web of economic, political, military and confes-sional interests, densely woven over the preceding two hundred years It also reveals that contemporaries perceived these events in Europe as a time of fundamental changes and transition, in which traditional, established con-cepts of seeing, doing and saying things collided with new, innovative ways and in which the hitherto unquestioned prevalence of the ‘old’ no longer seemed to be self-evident 4

This contemporary perception provides a conceptual basis to rethink the impact and significance of the Peace of Utrecht in a broader context of social and cultural transition By broadening the perspective beyond the field of international relations and embedding the (diplomatic) actors and actions in a wider social, economic and cultural context, this volume seeks

to cast new light on the peace negotiations and treaties in 1714 and 1715 Placing the peace negotiations within this phase of yet inconclusive transi-tions and transformations helps us understand the peace congress and trea-ties of Utrecht as part of an overarching process of reordering and stabilising societies that had been on the move for various reasons The diplomatic achievements, stipulated in a complex of treaties, are seen not only as a result

of the parties negotiating their conflicting interests, but also in their social and cultural entanglement In their accords, the treaties responded to shifting societal frameworks but could in turn impose sudden change on the respec-tive societies The extent to which societies and commonwealths were able to cope with such alterations proved critical for the stability and sustainability

of such peace agreements For example, a change of the ruling dynasty could imply a change in the social elites with far-reaching consequences for those who supported the defeated dynasty; access to resources, markets or trading networks could be blocked and challenge the economic basis of a society; changes in the confessional settings could cause domestic disturbances; so the outcome of peace negotiations had to meet the expectations of the people and proved crucial for the rulers’ legitimacy – peace-making thus affected not only the small elite of the princes’ diplomats, but was vital to the devel-opment of all affected societies

This volume responds to the state of research in two ways First, it tions the prevailing perceptions of the Peace of Utrecht in the history of international relations Second, it connects this sphere of international poli-tics and diplomacy with various studies on the social, economic and politi-cal effects of the War of the Spanish Succession and the Peace Treaties in particular polities

With regard to the first point, the history of international relations has often explained the Peace of Utrecht (and the subsequent treaties of Ras-tatt and Baden) as a watershed that marked the end of an ‘old’ system of pre-modern peace-making that was characterised by hegemonic concepts of

Introduction 3

‘universal monarchy’, confessional interests and dynastic alliances At the same time, it is credited with setting the scene for the rise of a ‘new’ way of peace-making and international relations, defined as a secular system of a

‘balance of power’ It is said to recognise equally sovereign powers and seek

to integrate them into a system in which confession, traditional alliances or actors like the pope were of merely symbolic relevance 5

Historiography has hitherto mainly treated the Peace of Utrecht as an appendix to the War of the Spanish Succession The analysis of the resulting treaties has led to an important line of research into the system of post-Utrecht international relations, a field that is based on the traditional idea that the war and the treaties resulted in a modern kind of diplomacy, a model of multilateral balance and international cooperation intended to counteract hegemonic policies both on the Continent and in its overseas projections Both the model of diplomacy and the idea of ‘balance of power’ have attracted a great deal of attention in classic works 6

However, national historiographies have focussed on diverging aspects that could be related to their countries’ role in the conflict In Spain, for example, particular emphasis has been laid on the domestic impact the conflict had

on a regional as well as a national level Worth mentioning are the works

by Albareda Salvadó, Bernardo Ares and Fernández Albadalejo The War of Spanish Succession has been discussed from the perspective of the profound changes it caused to the monarchy’s constitutional structure as the ensuing treaties meant a decisive step towards a modern nation-state 7 This perspec-tive also affected various other territories formerly under Spanish rule such

as Flanders or parts of Italy 8 Other, more recent works on the colonial and imperial dimensions of the war have contributed to this line of research In Great Britain, on the other hand, the Peace of Utrecht has mainly been treated with regard to the domestic political turmoil, the struggle between Tories and Whigs as well as the start of the Hanoverian period and the emergence of the British Empire 9 For the Dutch Republic, the Peace of Utrecht was seen as a watershed in the sense that it heralded a period of long decline in the eigh-teenth century The discussion has focused on the question as to whether the state could still be ranked among the great powers 10

Earlier works used to focus on the economic dimension of the war 11 or the confessional dimension of the conflict Open discussions are still under-way with regard to the continuity of the Protestant faith, the emergence

of capitalism and the new forms of political representation 12 It is worth highlighting that these works deal particularly with the impact this new model of diplomacy had on the foundations of the foreign policy of the present-day European Union 13 Much speculation and discussions concern whether Utrecht meant a new step in the evolution of diplomatic relations

in Europe or the beginning of a new era altogether Only recently, launched

by the Treaty’s tricentennial commemoration, have communicative and tural aspects begun to enter the research on the Peace of Utrecht – as had been the case with the Peace of Westphalia in 1998 14

cul-4 Inken Schmidt-Voges and Ana Crespo Solana

New worlds? The war of the Spanish succession

and its context

The peace treaties of Utrecht (Rastatt and Baden) not only set the Spanish succession by dividing the territories of the Spanish Empire among Charles

VI and Philip V Great Britain gained economic control of the Atlantic world, thus laying the basis for the British Empire; in addition, the Hanove-rian Succession was recognised, putting an end to a long dynastic instabil-ity The Dutch Republic achieved the implementation of a barrier in the Southern Netherlands against any further French threats, while the princes

of Brandenburg and Savoy gained royal status and sovereignty among the European powers

The far-reaching impact of these treaties had been looming since the last decades of the seventeenth century The question of the Spanish succession was not so much a problem of conflicting dynastic inheritance law but of the immense global influence, access to resources and power over colonial

as well as European territories that was associated with the Spanish crown The very fact that the two dynasties with the strongest claims to the Span-ish crown, Habsburg and Bourbon, had been struggling for a hegemonic position in continental Europe for two centuries made the case only more delicate – particularly for those polities who had gained enormous economic power, England and the Netherlands

Accordingly, in the last decades of the seventeenth century several schemes had been projected as to how the Spanish heritage could be allocated with-out risking enhancing one or the other competitor Archduke Charles of Austria, later-born son of Emperor Leopold I, claimed the Spanish crown due to a testament of Philip IV, who entitled his daughter Margarita Teresa, married to Emperor Leopold I, and her children to succeed Charles II, should he die without heirs Philip, Duke of Anjou, claimed the throne due

to the right of primogeniture His grandmother, Maria Teresa, wife of Louis XIV, was the oldest child of Philip IV of Spain Though she renounced her rights of inheritance in the marriage treaty, Louis declared this renunciation void since the dowry had never been paid

In 1698, France and England seemed to have found a convenient tion In the Treaty of The Hague, often called the first partition treaty, Joseph Ferdinand of Bavaria was presented as heir and suitable compromise candidate He was a cousin to both pretenders, who in return received con-siderable bits of the Spanish European empire Unfortunately, Joseph Ferdi-nand died early in 1699, and a new scheme had to be developed The second partition treaty, signed by France, England and the States General in 1700

solu-in London, now favoured Archduke Charles as Spanish heir, but all Italian parts should go to France Unwilling to agree to a breakup of the Spanish Empire, Charles II named Philip of Anjou as his heir in a testament shortly before his death in November 1700 By accepting this will, Louis XIV broke the London Treaty, and military conflict broke out in Italy In 1702, the

Introduction 5

Grand Alliance was renewed and England, the States General and Leopold

I declared war on France Their primary aim was to deprive France of any possibility to inflict further war on Europe Far from acting in unison, each partner of the Alliance had its own, eventually conflicting motives: England sought recognition of the Protestant succession and trading privileges in the Atlantic, the Dutch were looking for security of their territorial integrity and Archduke Charles was pressing his inheritance rights against the old ‘arch enemy’, the Bourbons

Fighting for the implementation of the London Treaty, the Alliance fronted France in various battles with shifting fortunes of war All parties became financially exhausted, and the first peace negotiations were con-ducted at Geertruidenberg near The Hague in 1709/1710 The issues that were brought up went far beyond the succession problem and included trading matters in Europe and overseas, territorial rearrangements for sup-porting dynasties, barrier forts and confessional privileges The negotiations failed, however, and war resumed A new parliament in England and the unexpected elevation of Archduke Charles as emperor in 1711 altered the situation; England and the States General feared an overly powerful House

con-of Habsburg, and thus England initiated preliminary negotiations for a final peace congress in Utrecht It was in session from January 1712 to April

1713, when the first treaties were signed

The respective envoys signed more than twenty treaties between 1713 and 1715 at Utrecht, Rastatt, Baden and Madrid, significantly shifting the balance of political and economic power in Europe

First, the Spanish empire was reorganised and divided at several levels Philip of Anjou, appointed as Charles II’s successor in his will, was recog-nised as Philip V of Spain He ruled Spain’s colonies in America and Asia, but in Europe he governed only a limited territory on the Iberian Peninsula, including the long-disputed county of Barcelona The Spanish Netherlands and possessions in Italy came under Habsburg rule As Philip had renounced his rights of succession in France, other European sovereigns’ fears of a Bourbon or Habsburg hegemony were dispelled for the first time France achieved the installation of the Bourbon dynasty on the Spanish throne and maintained a powerful political and economic position in Europe

Apart from these questions, which related directly to territorial aspects

of the Spanish succession and thus to the causes of the war, the treaties included many provisions concerning side-effects of the division of the Span-ish empire to meet the demands of coalition partners The Dutch Republic essentially sought to secure its long-term territorial integrity using the ‘bar-rier’, a series of fortresses on the Southern Netherlands’ border with France

As a reward for leaving France for the Grand Alliance in 1703, the Duchy of Savoy received Sardinia, giving it a stronger territorial presence in Italy and,

as a kingdom, a greater role on the international stage Likewise, as a ner in the Grand Alliance, the Prince-Elector of Brandenburg-Prussia won perhaps only minor territorial gains but experienced a considerable growth

part-6 Inken Schmidt-Voges and Ana Crespo Solana

of prestige due to his military achievements and in the final recognition as

‘King in Prussia’, making him a sovereign in Europe’s political landscape However, the Treaties of Utrecht had the most far-reaching consequences for England, which took a different path Its main objective was not so much to expand its dominions as to secure and control access to central positions in the Atlantic economy These included significant trading privi-leges in the Spanish colonies (most prominently, if not most importantly, the

asiento de negros ) and in the Southern Netherlands under the Guarantee

Treaty, at the Netherlands’ expense Apart from these economic interests, the recognition of the Hanoverian succession was Great Britain’s central objective in the negotiations with France In the negotiators’ view, political stability in Britain was possible only if France renounced its support for the Stuart princes

To understand how these diverging processes interacted, affected each other and influenced the further emergence of international relations, it is necessary to consider them embedded in a ‘culture of international relations’ that encompasses the mentioned social, cultural and economic contexts

The culture of international relations

Despite considerable methodological discussions and new approaches in the history of diplomacy, the narratives of the history of international relations have hitherto largely been based on a (neo-)realistic paradigm that regards states and powers as ontological, broadly identical group-ings pursuing a specific set of interests Many political scientists, how-ever, have adopted a constructivist perspective, regarding international relations not as an anarchic model but as a network of relationships developed in interactions between state and non-state actors 15 The decline of the state as a homogenous, sovereign entity in recent decades has raised two conceptual issues in contemporary debates that lead us to revisit international relations and peace processes in a time prior to the existence of nation-states

First, an actor-and-practice-centred perspective intertwines tional relations on different levels in order to analyse the specific dynam-ics of their interactions: political entities and their representatives play

interna-an importinterna-ant part in the development of international relations, but so

do the economic connections, interests and networks between the actors involved 16

Second, an analysis of domestic social processes can highlight factors in the transformation of international political goals and interests, taking into account long-term cultural and social change and, at the short-term level, a general contesting of authority in the heterogeneous political cultures and publics 17 As a result, interests and identities are no longer seen as given quantities but rather as fluid concepts that continually adapt to the actual situation As cognitive patterns, those aspects are vital to all communicative

Introduction 7

processes, whose analysis offers the opportunity to pinpoint the linkages between events, practices, perceptions and discourses in international relations 18

Transferred to the early modern period, when the nation-state was as yet unknown and in which policy-making relied largely on personal net-works, patronage and concepts of rule and sovereignty still rooted in the body and person of the prince, a ‘culture of international relations’ can

be depicted Based on the concept of political culture, it is understood as

a set of attitudes, beliefs and sentiments that gives order and meaning to a political process, provides the underlying rules and assumptions governing interaction between political entities, and encompasses both the political ideals and operational norms of international relations It is the product of the collective history of its constituent political systems and the biographies

of its actors and is thus rooted equally in collective events and individual experience and habitus 19

Of course, these approaches and theoretical debates are not new: they have long been a part of the canon of social and cultural sciences inte-grated in general historical research However, historians of early modern international relations only recently have begun to adopt such method-ological realignments 20 But the prevailing narratives of those interactions that in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries became what we nor-mally describe as ‘international relations’ still implicitly rely on modern state-concepts

Looking at the Peace of Utrecht from such a perspective of a ‘culture

of international relations’, we find a large number of actors at different levels whose legitimate entitlement to act (‘sovereignty’) 21 was part of the complex processes of negotiating rather than a clearly defined power Though there were many forms of institutional and territorial consoli-dation around 1700 that embodied important features of the later con-cept of statehood, 22 loyalties, offices, functions and responsibilities of the actors remained much more fluid and heterogeneous than is assumed for officeholders in nation-states For example, those who acted as residents, envoys and ambassadors were at the beginning far from forming a spe-cially trained, professional group with fixed and reliable salaries They often grew into their function through family networks, successful court careers and patronage To fulfil their political missions, they depended

on a considerable economic basis in their own households as landlords

or merchants and often typically on early modern mixed economies with different sources of income, based on wide-ranging, transnational kin and family networks Those networks indeed made them attractive for princes

to select as envoys 23 Thus, not only loyalty to the employer but the envoys’ own networks and vital interests have to be taken into account when analysing actors in international relations And this perspective sheds new light on what Nicolaus Gundling meant when he contended that ‘all of Europe is connected’

8 Inken Schmidt-Voges and Ana Crespo Solana

The Peace of Utrecht: Transformations in the

‘culture of international relations’

Adapting this wider, rather constructive approach to the Peace of Utrecht, the exploratory contributions in this volume focus on four aspects that in our view were crucial to transformations to which the Peace of Utrecht responded and formed the background basis of the ‘culture of international

relations’ These aspects are diplomacy , social networks , economic

struc-tures and the expanding role of the media Though each chapter deals with

a main topic related to one of these areas, it nevertheless touches other aspects as well This is why we will not introduce each chapter in turn but will describe the four areas of transformation and their mutual entangle-ment, as well as the ways in which the chapters provide new insights and research perspectives

a) Diplomacy

European diplomacy had become increasingly professionalised and entiated as a result of the negotiations to end the Thirty Years’ War It had developed into a generally recognised system of rules for communication between the courts and governments of Europe Lucien Bély has examined these aspects with respect to diplomats’ education, communication patterns and knowledge frameworks that institutionalised the forms and processes

differ-of peace negotiations that were further developed and adapted on a by-case basis But specific diplomatic techniques designed to maintain long-

case-term peace and security, such as articles and formulas for an assecuratio

pacis, acquired significant impetus in the late seventeenth century 24

Diplomatic history regards the Peace of Utrecht as an abrupt break with tradition, as it marked the first time that extensive peace negotiations took place without an official intermediary, ceremonial was reduced to a mini-mum, and it was axiomatic that participants had equal status 25 The use

of preventive diplomacy 26 in the assecuratio agreements and the Cambrai

and Soissons congresses of 1724 and 1728–1729 represented a new form

of peace-making, although it was only partially successful in the eighteenth century For the diplomats involved, it was essential to keep pace with events and to develop a nose for new forms of communication We know that the failure of the emperor’s negotiation strategies was due partly to the inexperience of the advisers and diplomats of the newly crowned Charles

VI In her contribution on Savoyard diplomats in Utrecht, Paola Bianchi shows that the professionalisation of diplomacy had a lasting effect both

on international events and on the processes of institutionalisation and bureaucratisation in the diplomats’ home countries Increasingly flexible social hierarchies and new educational structures created the basis for a suc-cessful negotiating team that earned significant territorial gains and royal status for Savoy Their experiences and European networks enabled them

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Introduction 9

to build a more centralised and structured administration after the peace treaty, and this was crucial to Savoy’s territorial expansion and increased political importance Bianchi uses three biographies to show that these net-works, and the resources they used during the Utrecht negotiations, were far more important in Savoy’s rise to political power than the personal traits of Vittorio Amadeo II that had previously been cited as a factor

We already know that the diplomats’ social networks were vital to their political success; this is one of the basic assumptions of early modern dip-lomatic history However, there have not been any studies focusing on their connections with other networks, even though their activation exercised a decisive influence on diplomatic events This is apparent in Sugiko Nishika-wa’s examination of the networks used by the Huguenots, which helped

to secure their existential and political future and deliberately made use of their connections with other groups (we would call them NGOs today) such

as the London-based Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, to tackle the issues of persecuted Protestants in France and elsewhere in Europe and

of countless galley slaves It was largely as a result of their influence that the causes of religious conflict in Europe were dealt with in a series of additional treaties and other agreements, undermining the common contention that the treaties were non-religious

In their articles, Ana Crespo Solana, Manuel Herrero Sánchez and ven Pincus repeatedly discuss the importance of economic networks that deliberately maintained close contacts with courts and diplomats in order to influence the negotiating parties’ political decisions These are particularly apparent in the new macroeconomic emphasis of the debates on the purpose and benefits of peace negotiations

David Onnekink’s study of the political language of two Dutch foreign policy advisers shows that, contrary to previous research assumptions, they did not adopt a new vocabulary but used different political semantics to describe a changing world Although both belonged to the same generation and had similar social, educational and religious backgrounds, one wrote reports and memoranda from a strongly religious perspective, while the other employed arguments from natural law and came to different conclu-sions The two approaches could co-exist, and the traditional Christian view

of politics and the world was not rejected as old or outdated It was taken very seriously, and its exponent was later to determine the Netherlands’ foreign policy as its grand pensionary This comparison reveals the open-ness and inclusiveness of the trend but does not imply a break with the past

b) Social networks

The decades around 1700 were characterised by ongoing changes not only in the field of international relations, but also with regard to state-building pro-cesses Experience of religious strife and civil wars in many European soci-eties had created a widespread tendency towards centralised government,

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10 Inken Schmidt-Voges and Ana Crespo Solana

ideally in the form of a king with potestas absoluta 27 This brought about an increased emphasis on dynasties as ruling elites, and a challenge to the dif-ferent social networks of political and economic elites 28 The ongoing shift

in polity from a personal relationship between ruler and ruled to a more abstract understanding of authority and citizenship was affected by the sub-sequent change of rulers in some realms Traditional loyalties of the nobility, their own family and kinship ties, were torn and had to be recreated Often, compromise peace solutions achieved with great effort proved difficult to put into practice within the community in a constructive and integrated manner Christopher Storrs demonstrates this dilemma using the example

of the Spanish monarchy, which experienced a phase of forced institutional centralisation and systematisation as a result of dynastic changes and losses

of territory following the peace congress This institutional change was the work of a new social and political elite Central government posts previously occupied by supporters of the Habsburgs were now held by minor members

of the aristocracy and the up-and-coming middle classes, reflecting the seated political and social consequences of a process of change that began

deep-in the seventeenth century and gadeep-ined new impetus as a result of the peace

A similar point is made by Ana Crespo Solana, who examines changing icies with respect to the incorporation of American colonies into the Spanish empire, highlighting the potential for innovation that resulted from the need to deal with changing circumstances Klaas van Gelder uses the establishment of the new Austrian Habsburgs’ dominions in the Southern Netherlands to show the delicate balancing act required, despite the somewhat unfavourable results

pol-of the peace negotiations, to maintain the support pol-of the social and political elites and create a broad basis for the recognition of their rule

A royal will or treaty was not sufficient to establish a new framework of sovereignty, and monarchs were always well advised to obtain the recogni-tion and support of the ruling elite, as Manuel Herrero Sánchez shows His analysis of the outcome of Utrecht in the context of the long-term relation-ship between Spain and the Netherlands shows the profound connections between internal, external and trade strategy As far as economic productiv-ity is concerned, he also shows that the supposedly old-fashioned regions ruled from multiple centres, such as the Netherlands or the Italian territo-ries, had lost little of their prosperity The economic benefits of the peace highlight the limitations of the state paradigm of organisational and politi-cal development during the eighteenth century, and more recent research has shown that the entities were more like empires than developing states 29

c) Economic structures

The economic interests of the various European governments and trading companies gained unprecedented importance during the Utrecht negotia-tions, making them almost the central driver of political decisions This

Introduction 11

development shows how intertwined Europe’s economies had already become and clearly highlights the growing importance of the political economy as a frame of reference for governments’ actions The domes-tic markets were expanding as a result of increased production and con-sumption, and this was closely related to important political questions, such as securing access to raw materials, markets and transport routes

It is particularly apparent in the significant changes that occurred in the Atlantic world as a result of the Peace of Utrecht The ensuing reorder-ing of American markets and flows of goods had resulted in a wide range

of strategies and objectives that are discussed in several articles Steven Pincus presents the differing views of the structure and foundations of a British trading hegemony, distinguishing between the Whigs’ ‘integrative’ empire and the Tories’ territorial one, as a core area of conflict in the two parties’ political programmes In the press, this conflict was expressed in terms of a polarity between ‘old’ and ‘new’, with one side claiming that the other was trapped in an outmoded system and in turn being accused of fomenting social revolution

The contributions by Klaas van Gelder, Ana Crespo Solana and uel Herrero Sánchez highlight the immense importance of economic issues for political and social development in the eighteenth century and

Man-of the Utrecht treaties in paving the way for the coming decades Their analysis of the economic context, the networks on which it was based and their close connection with the political elites clearly shows that the concept of the balance of power was not invented in the context

of Utrecht, nor was it limited to states’ ambitions for political power Instead, it was a much more complex system of kings, republics, dynas-ties, trading companies and empires An actor-centred perspective on the economic background and consequences of peace treaties sheds light

on the shadowy version of history inspired by national historiography and neorealism and increases our understanding of early modern peace processes

The radical changes that took place in Europe as a result of the Utrecht treaties are most clearly apparent in the way they were perceived and repre-sented by the press As the War of Spanish Succession had done before, the peace negotiations of 1709 onwards unleashed a vast flood of pamphlets, flyers and tracts across Europe These, together with detailed coverage in all European newspapers, provided a rich flow of information that was used strategically to influence public opinion to an unprecedented extent This phenomenon emphasises the controversy surrounding the various options available in the peace negotiations and the reading public’s close interest in the outcome, which exerted a strong politicising impetus Euro-pean publishers were intensely market focused, producing large quantities

of material to meet the need for information and guidance in an ingly complex world 30

increas-12 Inken Schmidt-Voges and Ana Crespo Solana

d) Print media

All of the contributions show the importance of the print media in nating news and opinions, and without them the intense debate on the many political decisions of principle would not have achieved such complexity The Utrecht negotiations took place at a time in which society and public opinion were undergoing profound change, with early Enlightenment social

dissemi-concepts questioning the arcana imperii and demanding to know whether

the political elite was acting for the common good 31 Closer international ties between publishers created a tension between governments’ efforts to manage information and opinions, on the one hand, and, on the other, an independent publishing industry subject to varying degrees of censorship depending on the government involved

The diversity of the European publishing landscape is clearly reflected in the different ways in which it reported on the peace process Steven Pincus and Tony Claydon reconstruct the discourse underlying the clashes between the British political parties in the newspapers, pointing out the provisional and controversial nature of their strategies during the peace negotiations, particularly during the abrupt changes in peace policy that occurred in

1710 through the involvement of other actors with different networks and discourses

The peace talks offered the ideal stage for governments to demonstrate, through foreign policy and its domestic implications, their own hegemony, legitimacy and conformity with current values Government policy was often criticised as being out of line with society’s expectations of peace We see this in Inken Schmidt-Voges’ analysis of how a German newspaper’s coverage of the Utrecht negotiations mirrored both war reporting and its readers’ own experiences of conflict The published reports ensured that the wider public knew what politicians were doing and could decide whether these actions were in the public interest; many were unhappy with their governments’ continued insistence on the preservation of dynasties and will-ingness to cede territories

Solange Rameix adopts a different emphasis in her examination of Louis XIV’s image policy As a result of serious domestic crises – looming national bankruptcy, poor harvests and a winter of hunger – official propaganda quickly and seamlessly transformed his reputation from warrior king to peacemaker, trumpeting his role in the forthcoming peace talks in response

to growing public disquiet

Contrary to the assumption that Utrecht resulted in a more rational, ular European order, the discourse, semantics and metaphors used clearly show that religious views of politics and the world remained the height of fashion Louis XIV’s revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 was a major event for the media, and slavery and the persecution of the Huguenots were common themes In England, domestic debate between Hanoverians and Jacobites was polarised religiously, while in the Holy Roman Empire the

of its political, social, economic and cultural contexts If we focus on the actors, networks, practices and discourses involved, the givens of interna-tional relations recede into the background and a different and more com-plex pattern of European and global interdependence emerges, comprising processes that were often incomplete and that occurred in different ways in different places but were also very closely related The nature and mean-ing of these connections were very specific to the early modern period and

must be seen in the context of a culture of international relations that goes

beyond concepts of national states and the interactions between them

So did the Peace of Utrecht herald a new world? No, but it did presage

a wide range of new and old models of response to change, all of them the subject of heated debate Each contribution in this volume deals with several

of these models with respect to one specific theme and brings out the nections between them Strictly speaking, therefore, it would be wrong to suggest an order in which they should be read

However, the editors thought it advisable to begin the book with a cussion of the new and old models, the role of networks and their influence

dis-on specific political decisidis-ons The first three essays therefore deal with the protagonist of the peace: Spain, an empire in transition, the causes and con-sequences of the Peace of Utrecht, and the developments on which it built This is followed by two papers on territories that were previously Spanish

or that profited from the breakup: the Austrian Netherlands and Savoy The first section, dealing with politics, ends with a contribution on the Hugue-not networks, emphasising the importance of transnational connections and their influence on the negotiations

Perceptions are inextricably connected with politics, particularly when

we take account of the importance of speech in the constitution of reality This is the subject of David Onnekink’s study of the world views of Dutch political advisers and of Steven Pincus’s chapter on Whigs and Tories’ differ-ing concepts of the British Empire and the importance of underlying knowl-edge to political decisions and strategy

14 Inken Schmidt-Voges and Ana Crespo Solana

The book ends with three essays focusing on different views of peace Tony Claydon analyses the development of the Tory peace discourse, while Solange Rameix traces Louis XIV’s transition from warrior king to peace-maker and shows how, despite his supposed omnipotence, his legitimacy was dependent on his subjects’ consent Finally, Inken Schmidt-Voges shows how news reporting provided an opportunity for criticism of the ruling classes and divergent concepts of peace in the Holy Roman Empire

The book adopts a new approach to early modern peace negotiations and treaties Rather than limiting itself to the history of diplomacy and international relations, it makes diplomatic achievements understandable

by placing them in a wider social context The book shows how, in the years before and after 1700, the Peace of Utrecht bore out Nicolaus Hieronymus Gundling’s contention that ‘all of Europe is connected’

Notes

1 ‘Der zukünfftige Friede wird ein General-Friede werden, und also kann man in diesem Collegio die Connexion von gantz Europa begreiffen.’ Nicolaus Hiero-

nymus Gundling, Vorbereitungs-Discours zu dem Utrecht-Baadischen Frieden

(Frankfurt: Frantz Varrentrapp, 1736), 1 (Prolegomena) The work was lished posthumously, based on Gundling’s statement and numerous transcripts

pub-of the lecture

2 A number of surveys of the War of the Spanish Succession have been published recently, see for example: Matthias Schnettger, Der spanische Erbfolgekrieg

(München: Beck Verlag, 2014); Joaquim Albareda Salvadó, La guerra de

succes-sión de España (1700–1714) (Barcelona: Critica, 2012); Daniel Defoe, rias de Guerra del Capitán George Carleton: Los españoles vistos por un oficial inglés durante la Guerra de Sucesión (Alicante: Universidad de Alicante, 2003);

Memo-Duque de Berwick, Memorias , ed Pere Molas Ribalta (Alicante: Universidad de

Alicante, 2007); and others

3 ‘Der Frantzose würde leichtlich alles verändern, weil er sehr inventieus ist, dahingegen die Österreicher mehr gewohnt sind eine Sache in ihrem alten

Zustande zu lassen’ Gundling, Vorbereitungs-Discours , 76

4 See for example: Christoph Kampmann, Katharina Krause, Eva-Bettina Krems

and Anuschka Tischer, eds., Neue Modelle im Alten Europa Traditionsbruch

und Innovation als Herausforderung in der Frühen Neuzeit (Köln: Böhlau,

2011)

5 A general overview in recent publications: Antonio Álvarez-Ossorio, Bernardo J

García García and Virginia León Sanz, eds., La pérdida de Europa La Guerra de

Sucesión por la Monarquía de España (Madrid: Fundación Carlos de Amberes

y Sociedad Estatal de Conmemoraciones Culturales, 2007); Peace Was Made

Here: The Treaties of Utrecht, Rastatt en Baden 1713–1714 , Catalogue of

Exhi-bition, ed Renger de Bruin and Maarten Brinkman (Petersberg: Imhof, 2013)

6 H G Pitt, ‘The Pacification of Utrecht’, in The New Cambridge Modern History , vol 6, ed J S Bromley (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

1971), 446–479; Heinz Duchhardt, Gleichgewicht der Kräfte, Convenance, Europäisches Konzert Friedenskongresse und Friedensschlüsse vom Zeitalter Ludwigs XIV bis zum Wiener Kongress (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchge-

sellschaft, 1976), 41–89; Agustín Guimerá and Víctor Peralta, eds., El equilibrio

de los imperios: de Utrecht a Trafalgar (Madrid: Fundación Española de

Histo-ria Moderna, 2005)

Introduction 15

7 Albareda Salvadó, La Guerra de Sucesión ; Pablo Fernández Albadalejo, ed., Los

Bor-bones Dinastía y memoria de nación en la España del siglo XVIII (Madrid: Marcial

Pons Historia, 2001); José Manuel de Bernardo Ares, Luis XIV, rey de España: De

los imperios multinacionales a los estados unitarios (Madrid: Iustel, 2008)

8 For Italy see: Christopher Storrs, ‘The Army of Lombardy and the Resilience of

Spanish Power in Italy in the Reign of Carlos II (1665–1700) (Part I)’, War in

History 4, no 4 (1997): 371–397, and Part II, in War in History 4, no 4 (1997):

371–397; and by the same author, War, Diplomacy and the Rise of Savoy, 1690

1720 (Cambridge Studies in Italian History and Culture; Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 2007) On Flanders see: Klaas Van Gelder, Tussen veel vuren

Het Soeverein-Baljuwschap van Vlaanderen in de Vroegmoderne Tijd (1500– 1733) (Standen en Landen/Anciens Pays et Assemblées d’États: CVI; Kortrijk-

Heule: U.G.A., 2007) and ‘Divided Loyalties Angevin Partisans in the Southern

Netherlands in the Aftermath of the War of the Spanish Succession’, Dutch

Crossing-Journal of Low Countries Studies 34 (2010): 1, 59–76

9 John B Hattendorf, England in the War of the Spanish Succession: A Study of

the English View and Conduct of Grand Strategy, 1702–1712 (New York:

Gar-land Pub., 1987)

10 Johan Aalbers, De Republiek en de Vrede van Europa De Buitenlandse Politiek

van de Republiek der Verenigde Nederlanden na de Vrede van Utrecht (1713), voornamelijk gedurende de Jaren 1720–1733 I: Achtergronden en algemene Aspecten (Groningen: Wolters Noordhoff, 1980); O van Nimwegen, De Repub- liek der Verenigde Nederlanden als Grote Mogendheid Buitenlandse Politiek en Oorlogvoering in de Eerste Helft van de Achttiende Eeuw en in het Bijzonder tijdens de Oostenrijkse Successieoorlog (1740–1748) (Amsterdam: Bataafsche

Leeuw, 2002)

11 John Fraser Ramsey, The Spanish Partition Treaties of 1689 and 1700:

Econom-ics and Political Aspects (Berkeley: University of California, 1932); Carmen Sanz

Ayán, ‘Causas y consecuencias económicas de la Guerra de Sucesión española’,

Boletín de la Real Academia de la Historia , part CCX, Cuaderno II (2013): 187–255;

Raul Alonso and M S Elvás, ‘El protagonismo de América en la Guerra de

Sucesión española’, in La Guerra de Sucesión en España y América Actas X

Jornadas Nacionales de Historia Militar (Sevilla: Cátedra General Castaños,

Región Militar Sur, 2001), 371–379; Ana Crespo Solana, ‘Las consecuencias de Utrecht en el imperio colonial y mercantil español Cambios y continuidades’,

in En nombre de la Paz La Guerra de Sucesión Española y los tratados de

Madrid, Utrecht, Rastatt y Baden (1713–1715) , ed Bernardo García (Madrid:

Fundación Carlos de Amberes, 2014), Catálogo de Exposición, 181–199

12 Protestantism and National Identity: Britain and Ireland, c 1650–1850 , ed

Tony Claydon and Ian McBride (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998);

David Onnekink, ed., War and Religion after Westphalia (1648–1713) , shot: Ashgate, 2009); David González Cruz, Guerras de religión entre príncipes

(Alder-católicos El discurso del cambio dinástico en España y América (1700–1714)

(Madrid: Ministerio de Defensa, 2002); David Martin Marcos, El papado y la

Guerra de Sucesión española (Madrid: Marcial Pons Historia, 2011)

13 See: Linda S Frey and Marsha L Frey, ed., The Treaties of the War of the

Span-ish Succession: An Historical and Critical Dictionary (Westport: Greenwood

Press, 1995 )

14 Martin Espenhorst and Heinz Duchhardt, eds., Utrecht – Rastatt – Baden 1712

1714 Ein europäisches Friedenswerk am Ende des Zeitalters Ludwigs XIV , ed

Martin Espenhorst and Heinz Duchhardt (Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 2013)

15 For a lucid summary of the main stages of this debate, see Steffen Hagemann,

‘Politische Kultur und internationale Beziehungen’, in Politische Kultur:

16 Inken Schmidt-Voges and Ana Crespo Solana

Forschungsstand und Forschungsperspektiven , ed Samuel Salzborn (Frankfurt

am Main: Peter Lang, 2009), 103–128

16 See, for example, Robert W Cox, Production, Power and World Orders: Social

Forces in the Making of History (London and New York: Routledge, 1998)

17 Thomas Hylland Eriksen and Iver B Neumann, ‘International Relations as a

Cultural System: An Agenda for Research’, Cooperation and Conflict 28, no 3 (1993): 233–264; Thomas Diez, ‘Postmoderne Ansätze’, in Theorien der inter-

nationalen Beziehungen , ed Siegfried Schieder and Manuela Spindler (Opladen:

Westdeutscher Verlag, 2006), 499–526

18 Jörn Lamla, ‘Politische Konstruktionen in rekonstruktiver Perspektive Drei

Modelle interpretativer Politikforschung’, in Die Ironie der Politik Über die

Konstruktion politischer Wirklichkeiten , ed Thorsten Bonacker, André Brodocz

and Thomas Noetze (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2003), 310–330

19 David L Sillis, ed., International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (New York:

Macmillan, 1968), Vol 12, 218

20 Though a lot of research has been conducted in this direction in the last years, studies mainly focus on the diplomats as actors and trade under the name of

‘new diplomatic history’ See e.g J Watkins, ‘Toward a New Diplomatic

His-tory of Medieval and Early Modern Europe’, Journal of Medieval and Early

Modern Studies , 38 (2008): 1–14 and the recent studies of Lucien Bély, Christian

Windler, Heiko Droste, David Onnekink, Arno Strohmeyer or Sven Externbrink

21 On the origin and function of the concept of sovereignty, see Martin Peters,

Souveränitätskonzeptionen Beiträge zur Analyse politischer

Ordnungsvorstel-lungen im 17 bis zum 20 Jahrhundert (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2000)

22 For an overview of the development of the ‘state’ as a result of early modern processes of institutionalisation, territorialisation and identity formation, see

Wim Blockmans, The Origins of the Modern State in Europe, 13th to 18th

Cen-turies , 7 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995–2000); Wolfgang Reinhard, Die Geschichte der Staatsgewalt Eine vergleichende Verfassungsgeschichte Europas von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart (Munich: C.H Beck, 2000)

23 Lucien Bély, L’art de la paix en Europe Naissance de la diplomatie moderne,

XVIe–XVIIIe siècle (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2007)

24 Guido Braun, Assecuratio pacis Les conceptions françaises de la sûreté et de la

garantie de la paix de 1648 à 1815 (Paris: Deutsches Historisches Institut, 2010),

http://www.perspectivia.net/content/publikationen/discussions/4–2010

25 See generally Heinz Duchhardt, Gleichgewicht der Kräfte, Convenance, Europäisches Konzert Friedenskongreße und Friedensschlüsse vom Zeitalter Ludwigs XIV bis zum Wiener Kongreß (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchge-

27 This is not the place to document the endless debate on the question of lutism’ For an overview of practices, norms and ideals of government in sev- enteenth- and eighteenth-century Europe, see Robert Oreski, C.G Gibbs and

‘abso-H.M Scott, eds., Royal and Republican Sovereignty in Early Modern Europe

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997); E Hawkesworth and Maurice

Logan, eds., Encyclopedia of Government and Politics , vol 1 (London: ledge, 2001); and Peter H Wilson, ed., A Companion to Eighteenth – Century

Rout-Europe , ed Peter H Wilson (Blackwell Publishing, 2008) and Laura Hengehold,

The Body Problematic: Political Imagination in Kant and Foucault

(Pennsylva-nia: State University Press, 2007)

Introduction 17

28 See in general the literature on state-building processes referred to in note 11

29 Michael Gehler, ed., Neuzeitliche Imperien, zeitgeschichtliche Imperien Imperien

in Theorie, Geist, Wissenschaft, Recht und Architektur, Wahrnehmung und tlung , ed Michael Gehler (Wiesbaden: Harrasowitz, 2014)

30 For a general overview of the history of the press in Europe around 1700, see

Andrew Pettegree, The Invention of News: How the World Came to Know

about Itself (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014); Volker Bauer and

Hol-ger Böning, Die Entstehung des Zeitungswesens im 17 Jahhrundert Ein neues

Medium und seine Folgen für das Kommunikationssystem der Frühen Neuzeit

(Bremen: edition lumière, 2011); Martin Gosman and Joop K Koopmans, eds.,

Selling and Rejecting Politics in Early Modern Europe (Leuven: Peters, 2007); Joop Koopmans, ed., News and Politics in Early Modern Europe (1500–1800) ,

ed Joop K Koopmans (Leuven: Peters, 2005)

31 Lucien Bély, ‘Le secret et la sphère publique en France au temps d’Utrecht’,

in Utrecht – Rastatt – Baden 1712–1714 Ein europäisches Friedenswerk am

Ende des Zeitalters Ludwigs XIV , ed Heinz Duchhardt and Martin Espenhorst

(Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 2013), 115–128; Wolfgang E J Weber,

‘Zwischen Arkanpolitik und Aufklärung Bemerkungen zur normativen Freigabe

der politischen Informationslenkung im 17./18 Jahrhundert’, in Utrecht , ed

Duchhardt and Espenhorst, 129–140

32 For a detailed discussion of the theme, see David Onnekink, ed., War and

Reli-gion after Westphalia, 1648–1713 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2009); Siegrid Westphal,

‘Frieden durch Ignorieren Die Frage der Rijswijker Religionsklausel im Vorfeld

der Friedensverhandlungen von Baden’, in Utrecht , ed Duchhardt and

Espen-horst, 167–185

Part I

Politics

The peace settlement and the reshaping of Spain (to c 1725)

of government and/or a realignment of the social and political forces within the polity Many of these processes were clearly in evidence in Europe in the opening decades of the eighteenth century, during both the Great Northern War and the War of the Spanish Succession and were ratified in the peace settlements that concluded them and embodied or established a new Euro-pean order In that sense, one could argue that peace rather than war shaped states although, of course, the peace was the outcome of the war Among the many changes wrought by the latter conflict, for example, England and Scotland agreed to form a new British state from 1707 onwards, while the Savoyard state – the collection of territories ruled by the house of Savoy in northern Italy – assumed not only a new shape, reflecting the acquisition of new territories, but also a new identity as its prince, Duke Victor Amadeus II, acquired the greater dignity of king of what had been Spanish Sicily Indeed, the peace triggered a wide-ranging overhaul of that state’s institutions both

to reflect and to defend its greater extent and enhanced standing 2

But the War of the Spanish Succession was above all, self-evidently, about the redefinition and restructuring of the Spanish empire or Monarchy, which – despite the supposed crisis and decline of Spain in the seventeenth century – remained the largest empire the world had yet seen, comprising

in 1700 various territories distributed around the globe Indeed, it was still expanding in the Americas and the Pacific in the last decades of the seventeenth century and was clearly a prize worth fighting for 3 Some of the contenders for that prize in the war of succession – above all and most

22 Christopher Storrs

obviously the Austrian Habsburgs – secured major gains at the expense

of the Spanish Monarchy, which had been left to Philip of Anjou by the last Spanish Habsburg, Charles II in 1700 The other side of this coin was that the war was largely responsible for a remarkable reshaping of Spain and its empire and the transition from a vast, supranational ‘Monarchy’ (or empire) to a smaller and more narrowly conceived Spanish state (or empire) 4

Bourbon propagandists at the time and later were inclined to see the advent of the Bourbons in the person of the erstwhile duke of Anjou – now Philip V- as transforming Spain in the sense of creating an absolute, central-ised, modern, national polity Later historians have echoed this verdict, not least in pointing to the new relationship established between 1707 and 1714 between the monarch and the Crown of Aragon 5 In the following pages, however, I seek to suggest that while Philip was certainly an innovator, in some key aspects of both policy and practice, he sought to overturn the new territorial order agreed at Utrecht and to turn the clock back to 1700, recovering the entire inheritance bequeathed to him by the last Habsburg

In exploring this topic, we need to adopt a different chronological aspect and to take a longer view, ending not in 1713–1714 with Utrecht and Baden but in 1725 with the treaty of Vienna concluded between Philip and his erstwhile rival, the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles VI (‘Charles III’ of Spain

to those who embraced his claim in the succession struggle) 6 Since Philip’s revisionist, revanchist aspirations drew some support from those dispos-sessed by that collapse of empire that was confirmed in 1713–1714, we also need to look beyond court and peace congress and to consider the many private individuals whose fates were shaped by the peace settlement

in that they lost office, pensions, homes and other properties and in many cases were forced into exile Finally, the way in which some at least of the various treaties and territorial and other adjustments were communicated – and justified – to subjects after a long and demanding war also throws invaluable light on contemporary political culture, suggesting the continued importance of older modes of discourse in explanations given to a public audience

Dynasty and territory

Dynastically, the peace confirmed the establishment of Philip V and the Bourbon dynasty in Spain This was by no means an inevitable outcome Charles II’s final will had provided for this outcome, but the second Parti-tion treaty (1700) had not, and the emergence of a formidable anti-Bourbon coalition, the Grand Alliance, following Louis XIV’s acceptance of the will in preference to the treaty, promised to prevent it Indeed, Bourbon defeats out-side Spain ensured that by 1709 Louis was ready to agree to a peace whose essential provision was the substitution of the Austrian Habsburg ‘Charles III’ for Philip V in Spain This suggests that the assumption – evident in most

The reshaping of Spain (to c 1725) 23

later accounts – that Philip’s victory at the battle of Almansa in 1707 assured his triumph in Spain is misplaced The allied successes in 1710, culminating

in a (second) allied occupation of Philip’s capital that year, meant that the setback of 1707 could still be reversed and the war in Spain could still be won by the allies and their Austrian Habsburg candidate This was certainly the view of the commander of the British forces in Spain Writing to the earl

of Dartmouth from Madrid in October 1710, James Stanhope was optimistic that ‘the war of Spain is not ended’ 7 However, the defeat in December 1710

of Stanhope, who was taken prisoner, along with almost two thousand other British troops, at Brihuega – one of the most serious setbacks suffered by a British expeditionary force in Europe – and that of the Imperial troops at Villaviciosa a few days later made 1710 a real turning point in the war and helped ensure that Philip V remained on the throne in Spain 8

Philip retained the Spanish Monarchy, but the War of the Spanish sion made that polity very different from the one he had inherited That con-flict meant the end of Spanish empire in Europe Flanders, into which Spain had poured so many men and so much money in the later sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, was effectively handed over to Elector Max Emanuel

Succes-of Bavaria (who had been appointed Governor Succes-of Spanish Flanders by Carlos II in 1691) as early as November 1702, in a deal brokered by Louis XIV, 9 and was effectively conquered by the allies from 1706 onwards, fol-lowing Marlborough’s victory at Ramillies that year 10 Spanish Flanders was not recovered at the peace by Philip V, who had in any event renounced sovereignty over the Netherlands in favour of the Elector in January 1712 11 However, Philip’s renunciation included a number of conditions, including that Max Emanuel should honour a grant made by Philip in September

1711 of a sovereignty in the Netherlands (with a revenue of thirty

thou-sand crowns) to Anne Marie de la Tremoille, princess des Ursins, camarera

mayor of Philip’s queen and all-powerful at Philip’s court The insistence

of Philip and his first wife, Maria Luisa of Savoy, throughout the making that a sovereignty be carved out of the Spanish Low Countries for the princess implied that at this point at least Philip anticipated the retention

peace-of a Spanish foothold peace-of some sort in Flanders 12 However, this ambition was thwarted, initially by the refusal of the Austrian Habsburgs to entertain the idea unless Philip restored the privileges of the Catalans and surrendered Porto Longone (see below) 13 and subsequently by the fall from favour of the princess following the arrival in Spain in 1714 of Philip V’s second wife, Isa-bel Farnese 14 In that sense, the objectives of the Spanish court in the contin-ued peace-making – and thus the composition and shape of Philip’s Spanish Monarchy as it emerged from the succession struggle – were fundamentally influenced by the shifting balance of power at that court and the triumph of the new queen over the old favourite

Even more striking was the loss of Italy, where there had been a Spanish presence for longer than in Spanish Flanders and which Philip V had vis-ited in 1702 By 1712, the Austrian Habsburg forces conquered the duchy

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impor-by the British fleet At the start of the peace-making in 1712, Philip retained only Porto Longone on the Tuscan coast and the large island realm of Sic-ily, which in the 1709 peace preliminaries had been assigned to ‘Charles III’

of Spain 17 However, in 1713, and at the insistence of the British ment, Philip – very reluctantly – surrendered Sicily to Britain’s then protégé, Victor Amadeus II of Savoy 18 However, along with attaching a number

govern-of conditions to the cession which limited the new king’s authority there, Philip retained a substantial presence in Sicily in the shape of the county of Modica; it had been confiscated from the Castilian grandee, the Almirante

of Castille, following his defection to ‘Charles III’ in 1702, and its sion justified Philip’s continuing to maintain agents in Sicily 19

In Spain itself, the loss on the mainland of Gibraltar (1704) was firmed in the peace-making as was that of the Balearic island of Menorca (1708) although Philip had hoped to exploit Dutch jealousies of English trade to recover the latter during the peace negotiations 20 These were real setbacks, but the peace could have been far worse in terms of dismembering Spain At one point it looked as if the political configuration in the penin-sula might revert to that of the early fifteenth century, with Castile opting for the Bourbon Philip and the territories of the Crown of Aragon (Aragon, Catalonia and Valencia) opting for the Habsburg ‘Charles III’ The real pos-sibility of a partition of Spain during the succession conflict, one halted only

con-by the Bourbon victories of 1710, cannot be dismissed lightly In that sense the peace settlement crucially confirmed the unity of Spain Peace with Por-tugal (1715) also ended another threat to Spain’s territorial integrity with the defeat of Portuguese hopes of territorial gains at the expense of Castile 21 These developments had crucial implications for the shape and char-acter of the Spanish empire, or Monarchy The Spanish Habsburg Mon-archy had been one in which Italy had loomed large and had a marked Mediterranean orientation It now comprised just Spain, the Canaries, the Balearic islands (minus Menorca) and the Indies (Spanish America) – and

of course the remaining African garrisons – such that it was far more

‘Atlantic’ in shape and character than hitherto At the same time, the loss

of Menorca meant that Majorca acquired greater strategic importance within Philip V’s state As for the loss of Gibraltar, this had implications beyond the adjacent territories in mainland Andalusia It increased the strategic importance of the North African garrisons, not only as possible bargaining chips in any negotiated deal with Britain to recover Gibraltar but also – if that deal and any military attempt to recover Gibraltar failed

as did the siege launched by Philip in 1727 – as a counterweight to the British presence at the Straits 22

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The reshaping of Spain (to c 1725) 25

Philip V may have retained the Indies, but he was obliged to accept a breach of the monopoly as the price of peace with Britain in 1713, in the

form of the asiento and permission for the slave trade granted to the

Brit-ish, along with the provision for the asiento company to establish a ence of sorts in the Rio de la Plata This was a remarkable breach of the policy pursued by the Spanish Habsburgs of refusing to allow foreigners to trade directly with the Indies and was thus a real setback for Philip who in

pres-1711 had set himself against anything of the sort 23 But Philip had avoided further concessions Indeed, it could have been much worse The British minister sent to Madrid at the end of 1712 to witness Philip’s renunciation

of his claim to the French crown in the Cortes (below), Lord Lexington, queried his orders to insist that Philip surrender the colony of Sacramento

in South America to Queen Anne’s ally, the king of Portugal; those orders apparently contravened Lexington’s original instructions from Bolingbroke,

‘que la reine empechera tout demembrement ulterieur de la Monarchie agnole’ 24 Indeed, earlier, in July 1712 Philip explaining to his ministers the impending peace settlement, had observed with some pride that by it not one bit of the Indies was to be separated from the Spanish Monarchy; the only cessions across the Atlantic were to be the conquests made there by the English at French expense Philip hoped to halt Portuguese expansion there and even aspired to raise the question of Jamaica which Oliver Cromwell’s forces had seized in 1655 25 He did not make headway on either of these items, being obliged – in the peace with Portugal concluded only in 1715 –

Esp-to accept the Portuguese presence (dating from 1680) at Colonia do mento, across the river Plate from Buenos Aires, 26 but he had secured the greater prize of Spanish America

The loss of those other European territories triggered a great movement

of individuals – émigrés and exiles – from what had been Spanish Flanders and Spanish Italy to Spain and from Spain to those territories now in Aus-trian Habsburg possession Those who followed ‘Charles III’ into exile have attracted considerable attention, 27 but not those who remained loyal to Philip V and who looked to him to both reward their loyalty and compensate them for their losses – of office, property and income There had always, of course, been Italians and Flemings in Spain before 1700, but this migration swelled their numbers, confirming the cosmopolitan character of the elite at court Some of the émigrés were lucky, securing lucrative offices and pen-sions although this sometimes necessitated securing naturalisation, in order

to conform to conditions of earlier grants of tax revenue by the Castilian Cortes According to Lexington’s secretary, writing in the summer of 1713, since the evacuation of Catalonia several offices there had been filled but not

by Spaniards Instead, Italians and Flemings had benefited, the Neapolitan duke of Popoli being appointed Captain General of Catalonia and the baron

de Capre governor Inevitably, these appointments provoked some tent 28 In fact, most of the exiles hoped to return home and recover their property, petitioning Philip to protect their interests in the peace-making 29

discon-26 Christopher Storrs

The plight of the exiles suggests another important stand in the peace negotiations and settlement, one largely ignored in accounts of the peace-making that focus on sovereigns and state formation – i.e the efforts of private individuals or families to press their own interests These individu-als and families were by no means all neglected by the sovereigns Philip

V, for example, instructed his plenipotentiaries to protect the interests of various exiled groups, including various Portuguese descendants of those who had been loyal to Madrid during the Portuguese ‘War of Restoration’ (1640–1668) and who should themselves have been restored by the terms

of the settlement of that conflict in 1668 and whose maintenance was a costly burden for the Spanish court 30 While awaiting their own restoration

in their homelands, the Italian and Flemish exiles reinforced a revanchist lobby in Spain, sharing Philip V’s own eagerness to recover the lost territo-ries (below) Lexington reported how he was escorted into Madrid in the autumn of 1712 by the duke of Popoli, ‘a Neapolitan and concerned for himself and his Relations in Sicily [who] entertained me the whole way with nothing but Arguments why England should not desire Sicily to be in any hands but that of Spain for the benefit of our trade in the Mediterranean’ 31

Domestic governmental and political change

Within Spain, the change wrought by the succession conflict that has undoubtedly attracted the most attention was the transformation of the sta-tus of the territories of the crown of Aragon – Aragon, Catalonia and Valen-cia These territories had enjoyed distinctive institutions, laws and practices,

or fueros – hence their status as so-called foral territories – that added up

to a jealously guarded de facto autonomy within the Monarchy, which Madrid tampered with at its peril Indeed, the threat to those institutions posed by the policies of the count-duke of Olivares had provoked a Cata-lan revolt in 1640 that seriously threatened the Monarchy’s survival 32 This autonomy was curtailed, or rather extinguished, from 1707 onwards This was the penalty paid for the Aragonese recognition of ‘Charles III’ although

just how committed they were to him – and he to their fueros – is matter

for debate 33 In 1707, following the Bourbon victory at Almansa, Philip asserted an authority derived from the defeat of supposed rebels – a right

of conquest – and abolished the fueros of Aragon and Valencia Majorca (following its reconquest in 1715) and Catalonia also forfeited their fueros and all received a distinctive new form of government, the so-called Nueva

Planta 34 Philip’s determination not to retreat from this achievement was evident throughout the peace-making: in the late-1711 instructions for his plenipotentiaries he made this very clear, observing that the last two Cata-lan Cortes had rendered them more like republics than was the ‘abusive’ English Parliament 35 The peace-making and final settlement were crucial in confirming this internal transformation Not only did Britain fail to exploit its advantage to force Philip to repeal his measures, but it also consciously

The reshaping of Spain (to c 1725) 27

abandoned its Catalan 36 and Majorcan allies, not least in order to secure those gains that constituted Britain’s real prizes from the war (above) Domestic and foreign policy could not be more closely meshed

These developments represented a major assault on an older form of Spanish state structure, one encapsulated in the notion of the ‘composite state’ 37 and the creation of a new type of Spanish state – absolute, central-ised, national and modern, whatever these terms might mean Certainly, Philip V enjoyed more authority in Aragon than before and was arguably more absolute than most other supposedly absolute monarchs, his author-ity in Aragon underpinned by the presence of large numbers of troops after 1707 However, the Spanish state remained ‘composite’ in various important respects For one thing, no single regime – ‘Nueva Planta’ – was imposed throughout the Aragonese territories In addition, certain features of the pre-1707 system survived the Bourbon revolution More important, perhaps, the Spanish state remained foral in that the kingdom

of Navarre and the senorio of Vizcaya, both of which had remained loyal

to Philip V throughout the War of the Spanish Succession, retained in and after 1713 their distinctive institutions and would do so until the collapse

of the Spanish ancien regime in the early nineteenth century In these

ter-ritories, the foral relationship with the monarch worked – with Basques largely dominating the central bureaucracy and Navarrese financiers fund-ing the king – and so survived, despite abortive efforts by the king to overhaul the customs regime c 1720 38 As for Castile, the heartland of the Monarchy, the conflict was accompanied by a remarkable ‘construction

of loyalty’ to the new king and dynasty, one acknowledged by Philip V in the peace-making (above) and which to some extent reflected the fact that, with the loss of opportunities beyond Spain (in Flanders and Italy), career opportunities from 1707 onwards were limited far more than before to Spain (and the Indies) 39

The developments just described also triggered some reshaping of ish government, above all at the centre, where a system of polysynody had prevailed hitherto This meant a system of councils responsible for a specific activity – war, finance – for a specific territory – Aragon, Castile, Flan-ders, Italy – or for a devolved jurisdiction – Military Orders, the Inquisition The changes introduced by Philip V reflected a number of impulses These included new, French influences in Spain, Louis XIV’s France being a state

Span-in which specialist mSpan-inistries prevailed over councils But political and tary developments in Spain and the larger Monarchy during the succession conflict facilitated Philip’s innovations, notably the loss of the territories for which individual councils were responsible The disappearance of the old composite monarchy was thus accompanied by the adaptation of a structure

mili-of government intimately bound up with it However, the council mili-of the Orders survived, reflecting the persistence of diversity within the Spanish state (and of other jurisdictions) So too did that of the Inquisition Fur-thermore, Philip V’s abolition of the Aragonese fueros was followed by the

the via reservada rather than by means of the traditional conciliar discussion and advice paper or consulta By 1720, four or five of these departments

of state had emerged, responsible for the most important functions: army, navy, finance, the Indies, patronage and the Church It was widely felt that this new, ministerial, way of doing business, which was by no means con-fined to the new ministerial secretaries, 40 made for more effective executive government than did slow-moving councils dominated by the great titled nobles or grandees

These developments were, in turn, part of a more ambitious attempt to refashion the Spanish state c 1713, which is difficult to separate from the peace-making, not least because of the role of key individuals in both, men like the Fleming Count Bergeyck In February 1713, Lexington reported from Madrid that the conclusion of the treaty of commerce that was an essential ingredient of the Anglo-Spanish settlement was being delayed by fact that Bergeyck, one of Philip’s plenipotentiaries at Utrecht but who also had the management of the trade agreement, was at the same time busy with the reform of the Spanish finances 41 This overhaul did not succeed as Bergeyck hoped; nevertheless the peace had allowed for some measure of long-needed fiscal improvement

Another institution that underwent transformation was Spain’s army Before 1700, the great bulk of Spain’s armed forces was stationed abroad,

in Flanders and Italy The loss of those territories meant that henceforth Spain’s army was stationed in Spain itself It was, too, a permanent force

in 1713, one much larger than the forces maintained before 1700 and one that was also more French in terms of its organisation, command struc-ture and weaponry, all of which were overhauled in the course of the suc-cession struggle At the same time Philip made clear his expectation that Spain’s elites should serve in his armed forces, by offering a new system

of privileged entry for those of (demonstrable) noble birth at cadet officer level 42 That other instrument of war, Spain’s navy, was also overhauled in the shadow of the peace in 1713 43

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The reshaping of Spain (to c 1725) 29

In seeking to explain these and other developments, historians have emphasised the importance of French influence in Spain from 1700, with the first Bourbon importing the practices and values of the government of his grandfather, Louis XIV There was certainly an element of this French men (and women) – the finance minister Jean Orry, 44 the diplomat Marquis Amelot de Gournay 45 and the princess des Ursins 46 – played a key role in all aspects of Spain’s government during the War of the Spanish Succession

However, and without ignoring the reality of afrancesamiento during the

war, it is increasingly apparent that many of Philip V’s innovations built

on earlier efforts at administrative reform, some of them – including for

example the appointment of provincial superintendentes of the finances in

1691 – dating to the reign of Carlos II 47

As was indicated earlier, reshaping might imply a realignment of the social – and thus political – balance within the polity And for many historians, Philip

V defeated the nobility, or more specifically the upper nobility, the titled nobles and grandees, who for many outsiders had seemed to turn Spain into

an aristocratic republic under Carlos II Some of the greatest nobles certainly suffered during and after the war of succession They included the Almi-rante (above), who died in exile in 1705, and the duke of Medinaceli, who died in detention in Spain 1711 Others, for example the duke of Infantado, preferred to retire completely from public life after being suspected of dis-loyalty In fact, it was perhaps inevitable that the great nobles should play

a less prominent role than before 1700 simply because despite Philip’s own personal problems – a bi-polar disorder – he was a capable adult male, who fathered a number of children, above all sons, thus securing the succession 48 There was thus no vacuum at the centre pulling – or rather pushing – the gran-dees into action, as had happened under Carlos II In that sense the reign saw Spain refashioned from what had verged on being an aristocratic republic under the last Habsburg into effective, or absolute, monarchy under the first Bourbon In fact, even during the succession struggle, most grandees were loyal The sixth duke of Osuna (1678–1716), for example, one of the leading grandees in Andalucia, served Philip as a soldier and headed his negotiating team at the Utrecht peace-making, 49 less because of any real capacity than to give Philip’s team the necessary social weight (Indeed, the real negotiating happened elsewhere, with the Spanish negotiators excluded until effectively the last moment) Nor should we ignore that at least until 1725 and the treaty of Vienna, which allowed for their return home, some grandee families were in exile in the Austrian Habsburg territories (above) As for the lesser

nobility – the caballeros and hidalgos – they established a new relationship

with the monarch in a variety of ways These included taking advantage of privileged officer-entry schemes in the revamped army and navy (above), contributing to the entrenchment of a new, Bourbon service nobility 50 Among the most striking aspects of the peace settlement of 1711–1714 was the importance of Philip’s renunciation of his claim to the French throne made in the presence of – and thus implicitly sanctioned by – the

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