Peace of Utrecht

The Peace of Utrecht is the name for the set of treaties, most of them agreed at Utrecht in the Netherlands from April 1713 to February 1715, that brought the War of the Spanish Succession to a close. Philip V, grandson of Louis XIV of France, kept the throne of Spain but gave up any claim to the French crown, so that the two kingdoms could never be joined. Spain's European lands were shared out, Britain made large gains, and the settlement is often seen as a landmark in the idea of a European balance of power.

The struggle over who should inherit the vast Spanish monarchy had drawn in much of Europe for more than a decade. In January 1710 Louis XIV agreed to open peace talks. In Britain, the Tories who won the election that year wanted to leave the war, and Queen Anne agreed. Britain and France settled preliminary terms in London in October 1711, accepting in effect that Spain's possessions would be divided.

The Congress of Utrecht opened on 29 January 1712. The Dutch accepted the preliminaries reluctantly, and the emperor Charles VI sent delegates only after being assured they were not binding. Little progress was made until 10 July 1712, when Philip signed his renunciation of the French throne. A British withdrawal from the allied army, arranged secretly with the French, left Britain's partners little choice but to follow its lead.

The main agreements were signed on 11 April 1713, when France concluded separate treaties with Britain, the Dutch Republic, Savoy, Prussia and Portugal. Spain made peace with Savoy and Britain on 13 July 1713, with the Dutch on 26 June 1714 and with Portugal on 6 February 1715. Commercial treaties were signed alongside. The emperor fought on and made peace with France only in 1714, in the treaties of Rastatt and Baden.

Philip was confirmed as king of Spain, and the French and Spanish Bourbons renounced their rights to each other's thrones. The treaties stated that one person should never be king of both countries.

Britain was the chief winner. Spain ceded Gibraltar and Menorca, and Britain received for thirty years the asiento, the contract to supply enslaved Africans to Spanish America, which France had held. France agreed to demolish the fortifications of Dunkirk, a base for privateers. In North America, France handed over Nova Scotia, its claims to Newfoundland and to lands in Rupert's Land, and its part of St Kitts, but kept Cape Breton Island.

Spain's lands in Europe were divided. The Duke of Savoy received Sicily and part of the Duchy of Milan. The emperor gained the Spanish Netherlands, Naples, Sardinia and most of Milan. Spain returned Colonia do Sacramento in South America to Portugal. Catalonia, which had backed the Habsburg claimant, was promised only an amnesty rather than its traditional rights, and its resistance continued until 1714.

In Britain the Whig opposition denounced the peace as a betrayal, campaigning under the slogan "No Peace Without Spain", and the government had twelve new Tory peers created to get the treaties through the House of Lords. The Dutch, though the talks took place on their soil, had little influence; the French negotiator Melchior de Polignac reportedly told them that matters would be decided about them, around them and without them.

Utrecht marked Britain's rise as Europe's leading commercial and naval power, and Gibraltar remains British today. France stayed a great power but accepted the Protestant succession in Britain and later dropped its support for the Stuart claimants. The Spanish Empire kept most of its overseas territory and recovered quickly. The Habsburg Monarchy strengthened its position in Italy, while the Dutch Republic, left nearly bankrupt, lost ground to Britain as a trading power. The idea of balancing the powers so that none could dominate, written into the treaties, would return at the settlement after Napoleon's defeat in 1815.

Our 1700 map shows Europe before the war, with the Spanish crown still holding Italy and the Southern Netherlands; our 1715 map shows the division agreed at Utrecht.