Treaty of Utrecht (1713): The Peace That Reshaped Europe

The Treaty of Utrecht, or more accurately the Peace of Utrecht, was a series of treaties signed in the Dutch city of Utrecht from April 1713 that ended most of the War of the Spanish Succession. It allowed Louis XIV’s grandson Philip V to keep the Spanish throne, but only on condition that the crowns of France and Spain would never be united, and it shared out large parts of Spain’s empire. The settlement shaped Europe’s borders for decades and made Britain a leading European and colonial power.

Background

The War of the Spanish Succession began in 1701 after Charles II of Spain left his entire empire to Philip of Anjou, grandson of Louis XIV. Britain, the Dutch Republic and the Austrian Habsburgs feared French domination of Europe and backed the Archduke Charles of Austria instead.

After a decade of fighting, both sides were exhausted. France had suffered heavy defeats and a devastating famine after the Great Frost of 1709, but Allied armies had paid dearly for victories such as Malplaquet. Philip V, meanwhile, had won the support of most of Castile and was firmly established in Madrid.

Two events in 1710–1711 changed British policy. The Tories, who favoured peace, won the general election of 1710. Then, in April 1711, Emperor Joseph I died and his brother, the Archduke Charles, inherited the Austrian lands and was elected Holy Roman Emperor. Placing Charles on the Spanish throne as well would have recreated the vast empire of Charles V, which was no more acceptable to Britain than a Franco-Spanish union.

Negotiations

The Tory ministers Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford, and Henry St John, Viscount Bolingbroke, opened secret talks with France in 1711, using the poet and diplomat Matthew Prior as a go-between. Preliminary articles were agreed in October 1711, largely without consulting Britain’s allies.

A general peace congress opened at Utrecht in January 1712. In May 1712 Bolingbroke sent the British commander, the Duke of Ormonde, the so-called “restraining orders” not to engage the French. The Allies, now without British support, were defeated by Villars at Denain in July 1712, which strengthened France’s hand.

Philip V formally renounced his rights to the French throne in November 1712, and French princes renounced their claims to Spain. This cleared the way for the main treaties. The negotiations were complex: the Dutch, who had borne a heavy share of the war’s cost, felt abandoned by Britain, and the Emperor’s envoys refused to accept a Bourbon king in Madrid. Britain’s separate deal with France was widely condemned by its allies as a betrayal.

The terms

On 11 April 1713 France signed separate treaties with Britain, the Dutch Republic, Prussia, Portugal and Savoy. Spain signed its own treaties with Britain and Savoy in July and August 1713, with the Dutch Republic in 1714 and with Portugal in 1715.

Spain and France: Philip V was recognised as King of Spain and its overseas empire, but he and his heirs were barred from the French succession. France recognised the Protestant succession in Britain and agreed to expel the Stuart claimant, James Francis Edward Stuart, from French territory. The fortifications and harbour of Dunkirk were to be demolished.

Britain: Spain ceded Gibraltar and Minorca. France ceded Nova Scotia (Acadia), Newfoundland, the Hudson Bay territories and its part of St Kitts, while keeping fishing rights off Newfoundland and Cape Breton Island. Britain also received the asiento, a 30-year contract to supply enslaved Africans to Spanish America, which it passed to the South Sea Company.

Britain and France also negotiated a commercial treaty to lower tariffs between the two countries, but the House of Commons rejected its key trade clauses in 1713 under pressure from merchants and Whig opponents.

Others: The Duke of Savoy received Sicily and the title of king. Prussia was recognised as a kingdom and gained Upper Guelders. Portugal had its claims in the Amazon region confirmed. The Dutch were promised a barrier of fortresses in the Southern Netherlands.

The Emperor Charles VI refused to sign at Utrecht and fought on alone until the treaties of Rastatt (March 1714) and Baden (September 1714). Austria then received the Spanish Netherlands, Milan, Naples and Sardinia.

Key people

Henry St John, Viscount Bolingbroke (1678–1751) was the driving force behind the British peace and was later accused of betraying the allies. Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford (1661–1724) led the Tory ministry. Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Marquis de Torcy (1665–1746), Louis XIV’s foreign minister, directed French diplomacy. Queen Anne supported the peace and created twelve new peers in 1711–1712 to push it through the House of Lords.

Consequences

Utrecht is often seen as the moment when the idea of a European balance of power became an explicit principle of diplomacy; the Anglo-Spanish treaty explicitly names a balance of power as the foundation of lasting peace in Christendom. No single dynasty would be allowed to dominate the continent.

Britain emerged as the main winner, with naval bases in the Mediterranean, new colonies in North America and a share of the Atlantic slave trade. Spain lost its European possessions outside the Iberian Peninsula. Philip V’s ministers, and later his second wife Elisabeth Farnese, spent the following decades trying to regain lands in Italy, which led to new wars in the 1710s and 1730s. France, although it kept its own borders largely intact, had been exhausted by the war and burdened with enormous debts. The Catalans, who had fought for Charles, were left without effective protection, and the siege of Barcelona continued until September 1714.

The Dutch Republic gained its barrier of fortresses in the Barrier Treaty of 1715, but its finances were drained, and it declined as a great power in the following decades. Savoy exchanged Sicily for Sardinia in 1720, and the house of Savoy ruled as Kings of Sardinia until it became the royal house of a united Italy in 1861.

In North America the ceded territories set the scene for future conflict. France kept Cape Breton Island and built the fortress of Louisbourg there, and the boundaries of Acadia and Hudson Bay remained disputed. The Acadian population of Nova Scotia, now under British rule, was eventually deported in 1755, during the run-up to the Seven Years’ War.

In Britain the peace remained bitterly controversial. When George I succeeded Anne in 1714, the Whigs impeached the Tory peacemakers; Bolingbroke fled to France and briefly served the Jacobite cause.

Timeline

• 1711, 17 April: Emperor Joseph I dies; Archduke Charles inherits the Habsburg lands.
• 1711, October: Britain and France agree preliminary peace articles in London.
• 1712, 29 January: The peace congress opens at Utrecht.
• 1712, 24 July: Villars defeats the Allies at Denain.
• 1713, 11 April: France signs treaties with Britain, the Dutch Republic, Prussia, Portugal and Savoy.
• 1713, 13 July: Spain and Britain sign their peace treaty.
• 1714, 7 March: France and the Emperor make peace at Rastatt.
• 1715, 6 February: Spain and Portugal sign the last of the Utrecht treaties.

Why it matters

The Peace of Utrecht ended Louis XIV’s last great war, confirmed the Bourbons in Spain and redrew the map of Europe and North America. It laid the foundations of Britain’s eighteenth-century empire and of a balance-of-power system that guided European diplomacy for generations, while its clauses on Gibraltar still matter today.