been confirmed in due form by the Cortes. A younger sister of the
King had been the first wife of Leopold, Emperor of Germany. She
too had at her marriage renounced her claims to the Spanish
crown; but the Cortes had not sanctioned the renunciation, and it
was therefore considered as invalid by the Spanish jurists. The
fruit of this marriage was a daughter, who had espoused the
Elector of Bavaria. The Electoral Prince of Bavaria inherited her
claim to the throne of Spain. The Emperor Leopold was son of a
daughter of Philip the Third, and was therefore first cousin to
Charles. No renunciation whatever had been exacted from his
mother at the time of her marriage.

The question was certainly very complicated. That claim which,
according to the ordinary rules of inheritance, was the
strongest, had been barred by a contract executed in the most
binding form. The claim of the Electoral Prince of Bavaria was
weaker. But so also was the contract which bound him not to
prosecute his claim. The only party against whom no instrument of
renunciation could be produced was the party who, in respect of
blood, had the weakest claim of all.

As it was clear that great alarm would be excited throughout
Europe if either the Emperor or the Dauphin should become King of
Spain, each of those Princes offered to waive his pretensions in
favour of his second son, the Emperor, in favour of the Archduke
Charles, the Dauphin, in favour of Philip Duke of Anjou.

Soon after the peace of Ryswick, William the Third and Lewis the
Fourteenth determined to settle the question of the succession
without consulting either Charles or the Emperor. France,