The Treaty of Utrecht, which established the Peace of Utrecht, is a series of
individual peace treaties, rather than a single document, signed by the
belligerents in the War of the Spanish Succession, in the Dutch city of Utrecht
in March and April 1713. The treaties between several European states,
including Spain, Great Britain, France, Portugal, Savoy and the Dutch Republic,
helped end the war. The treaties were concluded between the
representatives of Louis XIV of France and of his grandson Philip V of Spain on
one hand, and representatives of Anne of Great Britain, Victor Amadeus I of
Sardinia, John V of Portugal and the United Provinces of the Netherlands on
the other. They marked the end of French ambitions of hegemony in Europe
expressed in the wars of Louis XIV and preserved the European system based on
the balance of power. Negotiations
The War of the Spanish Succession was occasioned by the failure of the
Habsburg king, Charles II of Spain to produce an heir. In fact, the Habsburgs
were prone to pedigree collapse, and this shows in the appellation given to
Carlos II, el Hechizado, and in portraits of the Kings, like those by
Diego Velázquez and Juan Carreño de Miranda. Dispute followed the death of
Charles II in 1700, and fourteen years of war were the result.
France and Great Britain had come to terms in October 1711, when the
preliminaries of peace had been signed in London. The preliminaries were based
on a tacit acceptance of the partition of Spain's European possessions.
Following this, the Congress of Utrecht opened on 29 January 1712, with the
British representatives being John Robinson, Bishop of Bristol, and Thomas
Wentworth, Lord Strafford. Reluctantly the United Provinces accepted the
preliminaries and sent representatives, but Emperor Charles VI refused to do so
until he was assured that the preliminaries were not binding. This
assurance was given, and so in February the Imperial representatives made their
appearance. As Philip was not yet recognized as its king, Spain did not at
first send plenipotentiaries, but the Duke of Savoy sent one, and Portugal was
represented by Luís da Cunha. One of the first questions discussed was
the nature of the guarantees to be given by France and Spain that their crowns
would be kept separate, and matters did not make much progress until after 10
July 1712, when Philip signed a renunciation. With Great Britain and
France having agreed upon a truce, the pace of negotiation now quickened, and
the main treaties were finally signed on 11 April 1713.
Principal provisions The treaty recognised Louis XIV's
grandson Philip, Duke of Anjou, as King of Spain, thus confirming the succession
stipulated in the will of the Charles II of Spain who died in 1700. However,
Philip was compelled to renounce for himself and his descendants any right to
the French throne. In similar fashion various French princelings, including
most notably the Duke of Berry and the Duke of Orléans, renounced for
themselves and their descendants any claim to the Spanish throne. Utrecht
marked the rise of the United Kingdom under Anne and later the House of
Hanover; her exploits martial were due to Marlborough. The lucrative trading
opportunities afforded to the English were gained at the expense of her allies
with the Dutch forgoing a share in the Asiento and the Holy Roman Empire ceding
Spain to Philip V and being forced to reinstate the Elector of Bavaria.
The Spanish territories in Europe were apportioned: Savoy received Sicily and
parts of the Duchy of Milan, while Charles VI received the Spanish
Netherlands, the Kingdom of Naples, Sardinia, and the bulk of the Duchy of
Milan. Portugal had its sovereignty recognised over the lands between the
Amazon and Oyapock rivers, in Brazil. In 1715, the Portuguese also recovered
Colónia do Sacramento, previously taken by Spain in Uruguay.
In addition, under Article X of the treaty Spain ceded Gibraltar and Minorca
to Great Britain and agreed to give to the British the Asiento, a monopoly on
the oceanic slave trade to the Spanish colonies in America.
In North America, France ceded to Great Britain its claims to Newfoundland and
to the Hudson's Bay Company territories in Rupert's Land. They also ceded the
Acadian colony of Nova Scotia. The formerly partitioned island of Saint
Kitts was also ceded in its entirety to Britain. France was required to
recognise British suzerainty over the Iroquois and commerce with the Far
Indians was to be open to traders of all nations. France retained its other
pre-war North American possessions, including Île-Saint-Jean, Saint Pierre
and Miquelon, as well as Île Royale, on which it erected the Fortress of
Louisbourg. A series of commercial treaties were
also signed. After the signing of the Utrecht
treaties, the French continued to be at war with Emperor Charles VI and with the
Holy Roman Empire itself until 1714, when hostilities were ended with the
treaties of Rastatt and Baden. Spain and Portugal remained formally at war with
each other until the Treaty of Madrid of February 1715, while peace between Spain
and Emperor Charles VI, unsuccessful claimant to the Spanish crown, came only
in 1720 with the signing of the Treaty of The Hague.
The treaty, which resulted from a British separate peace, ruined Britain's
reputation with their allies. It also effectively bought the allies two more
years of war which could have easily been won if Britain had stayed the
course and refrained from dismissing the Duke of Marlborough from all his posts.
It further served to eclipse the Tories in parliament once George I ascended the
throne. Responses to the treaties
The treaty's territorial provisions did not go as far as the Whigs in Britain
would have liked, considering that the French had made overtures for peace in
1706 and again in 1709. The Whigs considered themselves the heirs of the
staunch anti-French policies of William III and the Duke of Marlborough.
However, in the Parliament of 1710 the Tories had gained control of the House
of Commons, and they wished for an end to Great Britain's participation in a
European war. Queen Anne and her advisors had also come to agree.
The party in the administration of Robert Harley and the Viscount
Bolingbroke proved more flexible at the bargaining table and were characterised
by the Whigs as "pro-French"; Oxford and Bolingbroke persuaded the Queen to
create twelve new "Tory peers" to ensure ratification of the treaty in the House
of Lords. Although the fate of the Spanish
Netherlands in particular was of interest to the United Provinces, Dutch
influence on the outcome of the negotiations was fairly insignificant,
even though the talks were held on their territory. The French negotiator
Melchior de Polignac taunted the Dutch with the bon mot De vous, chez vous,
sans vous, meaning that negotiations would be held "about you, around you,
without you." The fact that Bolingbroke had secretly ordered the British
commander, the Duke of Ormonde, to withdraw from the Allied forces before
the Battle of Denain, and the fact that they secretly arrived at separate peace
with France was a fait accompli, made the objections of the Allies pointless.
In any case, the Dutch achieved their condominium in the Austrian Netherlands
with the Austro-Dutch Barrier Treaty of 1715.
The peace, such as it was, between European powers was to endure until the
onset of the Seven Years' War, ostensibly started by contention between
Britain and France over North America. This war was concluded by the Treaty of
Paris in 1763. Balance of power
The European concept of the balance of power, first mentioned in 1701 by
Charles Davenant in Essays on the Balance of Power, became a common topic
of debate during the war and the conferences that led to signing of the
treaties. Boosted by 19 April 1709 issue of Daniel Defoe's A Review of the
Affairs of France, a periodical that supported the Harley Ministry, the
concept was a key factor in British negotiations, and was reflected in the
final treaties. This theme would continue to be a significant factor in
European politics until the time of the French Revolution.
See also Disputed status of Gibraltar
French Shore Herman Moll
List of treaties References
Bibliography Churchill, Winston. Marlborough: His
Life and Times, Bk. 2, vols. iii & iv. University of Chicago Press. ISBN
0-226-10635-7 Gregory, Desmond: Minorca, the Illusory
Prize: A History of the British Occupations of Minorca Between 1708 and
1802 Lynn, John A. The Wars of Louis XIV,
1667–1714. Longman. ISBN 0-582-05629-2 Sichel Walter: Bolingbroke And His
Times, 2 vols. Vol. 1 The Reign of Queen Anne
Stanhope, Philip: History of England, Comprising the Reign of Queen Anne until
the Peace of Utrecht Trevelyan, G. M. England Under Queen
Anne. 3 volumes. Longmans, Green and co. External links
"The Treaties of Utrecht" Brief discussion and extracts of the various
treaties on François Velde's Heraldica website, with particular focus on the
renunciations and their later reconfirmations.
Interpretation of parts of the treaty relating to Gibraltar
www.gib-action.comutrecht.html