France and the Jacobite threat

International crisis

An international crisis had broken out over succession to another European throne - that of Spain - following the death, without issue, of its king, Carlos II, in 1700. The complexity of interrelationships within the Habsburg royal dynasty meant that there were rival claimants to the Spanish throne, one being a grandson of Louis XIV of France, the other from the Austrian branch of the family. Louis XIV was determined to obtain the immense Spanish inheritance (which, as well as Spain, included a large part of the Netherlands and parts of Italy) for his own dynasty and in fulfilment of his lifelong quest to enlarge France territorially and turn it into the most powerful Catholic state in Europe.

A 'war of the British succession'

In September 1701, when the deposed King James II and VII died at St Germain in France, Louis XIV took the deliberate step of publicly proclaiming his son James Edward as the rightful king of England, Scotland and Ireland. It was an act intended to provoke his old arch-enemy King William into a new war, and aroused much patriotic indignation in England. But it also suggested that in the coming hostilities the French would seek whatever opportunities they could to restore the Stuart dynasty to the British kingdoms. Although the British army would be fighting in a war to prevent the French king from acquiring control over the Spanish dominions, they were also fighting him to preserve the British succession from the Stuarts. For this reason it has also been described as a 'war of the British succession'.

How Scotland's quarrelling magnates would react in relation to the question of the royal succession was therefore a matter of highest importance to King William and his advisers.