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THE ALLIES CAPTURE BARCELONA.

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to surprise Montjuich, a detached fort on a hill above the sea, CHAP. about 1,100 yards south of Barcelona. On September 14, Prince George selected 1,000 men for the enterprise, Peterborough remaining in the rear with the reserves. Montjuich was defended by a garrison of about 200 Neapolitans. The assailants, whose attack was to be delivered from the landward or south-west side, having mistaken their road, did not arrive till broad daylight. They were repulsed with considerable loss, and Prince George was killed. Peterborough rallied them, and they took shelter behind the earthworks whence they could annoy the garrison. Meanwhile a force of miquelets, by the capture of the intermediate work called St. Bertran, cut off the prospects of succour from Barcelona. On the 17th the powder magazine blew up and the garrison surrendered. As the inaction of Velasco, the governor of Barcelona, shewed that he did not trust his troops, the allies determined to make a serious attack on the city. A breach having been effected, Velasco capitulated and was accorded the honours of war.

The consequences of these successes were quickly seen. The Count of Cifuentes raided Aragon. In the kingdom of Valencia and in Catalonia several strong places sent in their surrenders, and the city of Valencia rose against the Madrid governor. Peterborough, like a knight-errant, rode through Catalonia in January, 1706, with a handful of horsemen, taking possession of towns. The east had rebelled against the west of Spain. Philip V. was helpless. Tessé, who commanded the bulk of his forces, was confronted at Badajoz by Das Minas and the allies. To march eastwards would be to leave Castile open to the Anglo-Portuguese army. And Castile was wavering. The defection of Portugal and Savoy and the victory of Blenheim, followed by the catastrophe in the east of Spain, had seriously changed the outlook. Louis XIV. awoke to the crisis. He dispatched 9,000 men under General Légal to the northern frontier of Catalonia and ordered Tessé to concentrate the Bourbon troops in Aragon (January, 1706). Meanwhile, Peterborough, having quarrelled with "the wretches of Barcelona," that is, the Archduke Charles in particular and stadt and Peterborough, conclusively establishes the secondary part which Peterborough really played.

'Lord Peterborough to Lord Hist. MSS. Comm., 1895.

January 11, 1706, Morrison MSS., p. 467,

IV.

CHAP. his German advisers in general, had scattered his troops through Catalonia and Valencia, leaving a garrison of only 1,400 men in Barcelona. The English fleet having sailed homewards in October, the French next spring seized the opportunity. On April 1, 1706, a powerful fleet under the Count of Toulouse anchored before Barcelona, while a land force of 21,000 men, under the nominal command of Philip V., invested the city. Montjuich was taken by storm on the 25th. Only the arrival of Leake with an English and Dutch fleet of fifty-two line of battle ships, before which the French fleet took to flight, saved Barcelona from recapture. Peterborough had endeavoured to divert Leake's fleet by orders sent to Lisbon to make for the Grao, the harbour of Valencia, adding that he hoped "to march on Madrid". Leake, however, receiving urgent messages from the beleaguered archduke to hasten to his relief, and reflecting that the occupation of Madrid by Peterborough would not countervail the capture by the French of the allies' candidate for the throne, determined, with the concurrence of his officers, to risk disobedience to Peterborough's orders. Peterborough, therefore, adroitly changed his plan, made his way in an open boat to Leake's ship, hoisted his flag as admiral, and posed as the saviour of Barcelona, which, if his orders had been obeyed, would have been lost. Tessé and Philip V. retreated to Roussillon, leaving behind them large stores and munitions of war. The moral effect was immense, for there was now but one king, Charles III., in Spain. Peterborough was glorified as a second Marlborough, and the relief of Barcelona was celebrated with the victory of Ramillies by a public thanksgiving at St. Paul's on June 27.

The withdrawal at the end of 1705 of the greater part of the French troops from the western frontier of Spain to join Tessé in Aragon offered an opportunity for an advance by the Anglo-Portuguese army under Galway and Das Minas. Their total force amounted to 19,000 men, of whom 2,000 were English and 2,000 Dutch. The English cavalry numbered 200 only, the Portuguese 3,600. Opposed to them was Marshal Berwick with 15,300 Spanish infantry and 4,000 horse. Berwick, a master of retreats, drew back before the allies, who captured the important fortress of Ciudad Rodrigo on May 26.

Galway learning on the 27th the defeat of

1706 GALWAY AND DAS MINAS OCCUPY MADRID. 89

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Tessé, with great difficulty persuaded the Portuguese to CHAP. march with him on Madrid. Berwick made no attempt to defend the passes of the Guadarrama range, but the population was hostile to the invaders, the roads difficult and provisions scarce, while Das Minas was sulkily threatening to return and the Portuguese soldiers were deserting. Galway himself was ill with gout, and, never having recovered strength since the loss of his arm, had to be lifted on horseback. Had Berwick offered battle, the numbers of both armies being approximately equal, the issue must have been perilous for the invaders. As he continued to retreat, Galway and Das Minas made a triumphant entry into Madrid on June 27, and proclaimed Charles III. Thence Galway sent dispatches to Charles and Peterborough, urging an immediate advance.

In Madrid the soldiers of the allied army, amid a sullenly hostile population, compensated themselves by excess for the privations of their march. A fourth of their number found their way into the hospitals. On July 11 Galway marched out of Madrid, and Berwick, retreating before him, encamped on the 15th at Guadalaxara. Here he received dispatches announcing the march of Charles and his arrival at Saragossa. On July 28, Berwick was reinforced from Navarre by Légal at the head of a French army of 2,300 horse and 9,000 foot. His entire force now numbered 25,000 men. It was the opinion of Berwick that the delays of Galway and Das Minas at Madrid and in the camp of Guadalaxara ruined the fortunes of the Archduke Charles in Spain. Galway's illness, the want of enterprise of Das Minas, and the quarrels of the two gave Berwick the needed interval in which to form his army. At the beginning of July they could have driven him beyond the Ebro; towards the end of the month he was in a position to open the offensive with a superior force.

A council of war held at Barcelona on May 18 had decided that Peterborough, starting from Valencia, should clear the roads to Madrid, and afterwards, accompanied by the archduke and at the head of 8,000 men, join hands with Galway's army. At the parliamentary inquiry of 1711, Peterborough bitterly complained that he had received no adequate equipment for his undertaking. But on July 6, he announced the road to Madrid clear both of hostile walls and of hostile troops,

IV.

CHAP. and urged the archduke by letter to start from Barcelona at once1 and join him at Valencia. In the meanwhile, the insurrection in favour of the Austrian candidate had been spreading through Aragon, and, despite the protests of Peterborough and of General Stanhope, his official English adviser, Charles elected to proceed to Saragossa. In this choice, his strained relations with Peterborough were decisive.2 Charles knew also of the fall of Madrid and that Galway and Das Minas were expecting him by the route through Saragossa. He could neither anticipate the dilatoriness of those generals nor the rapidity with which Berwick could re-form his army. For six weeks Peterborough remained sulking or pursuing his gallantries at Valencia, until peremptory orders compelled him to join the archduke. On August 5 the two effected a junction with Galway at Guadalaxara at the head of 5,000 men. The camp now contained three generals whose precedence was unsettled and whose powers were indeterminate, each animated by jealousy of the other. Charles and his German advisers, whom Peterborough hated and ridiculed, treated Peterborough with studied contempt. Perceiving the situation impossible for him, he communicated to Charles a dispatch from Secretary Hedges, of June 19-30, directing him, if it could be done, to proceed to the assistance of the Duke of Savoy, then concerting operations for the relief of Turin. The idea was gratefully seized upon by Charles and the allied generals, who were weary of his arrogance and factiousness. Charles entrusted him with a commission to raise £100,000 at Genoa, by way of loan upon mortgage of Spanish territory, and suggested that on his return he should attempt the reduction of Minorca. On

In the Memoirs of Lord Walpole, the story is told that when Charles excused his delay in setting out for Saragossa on the plea that his state coach was not ready for his entry into the Aragonese capital, Stanhope replied: "Sir, the Prince of Orange entered London in a coach and four, with a cloak bag behind him, and was made king not many weeks after ". This anecdote has been dismissed by Heller in the Oesterr. militär. Zeitschrift (1839) as a fiction, but it finds confirmation in a letter from a person in Peterborough's suite among the Duke of Marlborough's papers at Blenheim Palace, dated Alicant, September 3, 1706: "The king said it was not for his catholic honour to go without his retinue. Mr. Stanhope told him K. William went post in a Hackney coach with a few dragoons to London, or else he had lost the crown. However, folly prevailed," Hist. MSS. Comm., 8th Rep., App., p. 18.

etc.

2 Wratislaw to Marlborough, August 21, 1706, Von Noorden, ii., 412,

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September 15 he left Valencia for Italy. The reinforced CHAP. French and Castilian army, under Berwick, reoccupied Madrid on August 4 amid the applause of the population. Nothing remained for the archduke's army, reduced by disease and desertions at Guadalaxara to 14,000 men, but to beat a retreat. Cut off by Berwick from Portugal, they turned eastwards. Struggling through a country already exhausted by war, enfeebled by sickness and privations, exposed to a sun so fierce "that the barrels of their guns burnt their fingers," 1 and harassed by the guerrilla warfare of the peasantry of Castile, they re-entered Valencia, a rabble of 10,000 men.

A belief had long been propagated in England that not only in Languedoc was exasperation acute at the religious persecutions and tyrannical suppressions of local self-government by Louis XIV. An ex-abbé of noble French family, preferring the life of adventure to that of seclusion, had quitted his benefices and, being a former friend of Prince Eugene, had made his way to Vienna, where he became a lieutenant-general in the imperial army, assuming the title of Marquis de Guiscard. From Vienna he went to the Hague with an introduction to Heinsius. Thence he issued manifestos calling upon his countrymen to rise against Louis and absolutism, and there he made the acquaintance of Marlborough, and, through Marlborough, of St. John. To St. John, as secretary at war, he presented plans for a descent on the coast of France. It does not appear that Marlborough went further into the matter than to give the idea his general approval, to nominate Earl Rivers as commander of the expedition, and to urge the States-general to contribute some naval and military assistance. He could have no knowledge of the fundamental misconception on which the whole enterprise was based, that the French population of Saintonge and Guienne was ready to rise for their forgotten liberties.2

The States-general assented to Marlborough's request.

1 R. Palmer to Lord Fermanagh, Nov. 19, 1706, Verney MSS., p. 507, Hist. MSS. Comm., 7th Rep., App.

2 The queen's instructions to Earl Rivers are printed in the Bath MSS., i., 84, dated July 21, 1706. He is to issue "manifestoes," "taking care to give assurances to the people, and to make it public that his design is not for conquest, but to restore to all sorts of people their ancient rights and privileges". The manifestos were prepared in London. H. St. John to Secretary Harley, Portsmouth, July 27, 1706, ibid., p. 85.