Part 1159

The long War of the Spanish Succession was brought to a close (except as between Germany and France) by negotiations at Utrecht, which resulted in the concluding of a number of treaties between the several powers concerned, constituting collectively what is known as the Peace of Utrecht. Negotiations to this end were begun by England and France early in 1711, and preliminaries were settled between them and signed in October of that year. This action of the English compelled the other allies to consent to a general conference, which opened at Utrecht January 20, 1712. The discussion of terms lasted more than a year, while the war went on. Between Germany and France the war still continued and it was at Rastadt (March, 1714), not Utrecht, that the last named powers came to their agreement of peace. The several treaties concluded at Utrecht were most of them signed on the 31st day of March. O. S., or April 11, N. S., in the year 1713, "by the plenipotentiaries of France, England, Portugal, Prussia, Savoy, and the United Provinces; the emperor resolving to continue the war, and the king of Spain refusing to sign the stipulations until a principality should be provided in the Low Countries for the princess Ursini, the favourite of his queen [a demand which he subsequently withdrew]. {3593} The chief articles of this memorable pacification were to the following purport: It was stipulated that, … Philip, now established on the Spanish throne; should renounce all right to the crown of France; that the dukes of Berry and Orleans, the next heirs to the French monarchy after the infant dauphin, should in like manner renounce all right to the crown of Spain, in the event of their accession to the French throne; that, on the death of Philip, and in default of his male issue, the succession of Spain and the Indies should be secured to the duke of Savoy; that the island of Sicily should be instantly ceded by his Catholic majesty to the same prince, with the title of king; that France should also cede to him the valleys of Pragelas, Oulx, Sezanne, Bardonache, and Château-Dauphin, with the forts of Exilles and Fenestrelles, and restore to him the duchy of Savoy and the county of Nice; and that the full property and sovereignty of both banks and the navigation of the Marañan, or river of Amazons, in South America, should belong to the king of Portugal. It was declared that the king of Prussia should receive Spanish Guelderland, with the sovereignty of Neufchâtel and Valengin, in exchange for the principality of Orange and the lordship of Châlons, and that his regal title should be acknowledged; that the Rhine should form the boundary of the German empire on the side of France; and that all fortifications, beyond that river, claimed by France, or in the possession of his most Christian majesty, should either be relinquished to the emperor or destroyed; that the kingdom of Naples, the duchy of Milan, and the Spanish territories on the Tuscan shore, should be ceded to the house of Austria; that the sovereignty of the Spanish Netherlands should likewise be secured to that family; but that the elector of Bavaria (to whom they had been granted by Philip) should retain such places as were still in his possession, until he should be reinstated in all his German dominions, except the Upper Palatinate, and also be put in possession of the island of Sardinia, with the title of king: that Luxemburg, Namur, and Charleroy should be given to the states-general as a barrier, together with Mons, Menin, Tournay, and other places; and that Lisle, Aire, Bethune, and St. Venant, should be restored to France. It was agreed that the French monarch should acknowledge the title of queen Anne, and the eventual succession of the family of Hanover to the British throne; that the fortifications of Dunkirk (the cause of much jealousy to England, and raised at vast expense to France) should be demolished, and the harbour filled up; that the island of St. Christopher (which had long been possessed jointly by the French and English, but from which the French had been expelled in 1702) should be subject to this country [England]; that Hudson's Bay and Straits (where the French had founded a settlement, but without dispossessing the English, and carried on a rival trade during the war), the town of Placentia, and other districts of the island of Newfoundland (where the French had been suffered to establish themselves, through the negligence of government), and the long-disputed province of Nova Scotia (into which the French had early intruded, out of which they had been frequently driven, and which had been finally conquered by an army from New England in 1710), should be considered as the dependencies of the British crown: that Minorca and the fortress of Gibraltar (conquered from Spain) should remain in the possession of Great Britain; and that the Assiento, or contract for furnishing the Spanish colonies in South America with negroes, should belong to the subjects of Great Britain for the term of thirty years. That these conditions, especially on the part of Great Britain, were very inadequate to the success and expense of the war, will be allowed by every intelligent man, whose understanding is not warped by political prejudices. … The other confederates had greater cause to be satisfied, and the emperor [Charles VI.] as much as any of them; yet was he obstinate in refusing to sign the general pacification, though two months were allowed him to deliberate on the terms. But he had soon reason to repent his rashness in resolving to continue the war alone. … The imperial army on the Rhine, commanded by prince Eugene, was not in a condition to face the French under Villars, who successively took Worms, Spire, Keiserlautern, and the important fortress of Landau. He forced the passage of the Rhine … and reduced Freyburg, the capital of the Breisgau. Unwilling to prosecute a disastrous war, the emperor began seriously to think of peace; and conferences, which afterward terminated in a pacific treaty, were opened between prince Eugene and Villars, at Ranstadt. The terms of this treaty, concluded on the 6th of March (N. S.) 1714 [but ratified at Baden the next September, and sometimes called the Treaty of Baden], were less favourable to the emperor than those which had been offered at Utrecht. The king of France retained Landau, which he had before proposed to cede, with several fortresses behind the Rhine, which he had agreed to demolish [but restored Freiburg]. He procured the full re-establishment of the electors of Bavaria and Cologne in their dominions and dignities; the former prince consenting to relinquish Sardinia to the emperor, in return for the Upper Palatinate. … The principal articles in regard to Italy and the Low Countries were the same with those settled at Utrecht. Relaxing in his obstinacy, the king of Spain also acceded to the general pacification."

_W. Russell, History of Modern Europe, part 2, letter 23 (volume 3)._

ALSO IN: _J. W. Gerard, The Peace of Utrecht, chapters 24-29._

_T. Macknight, Life of Bolingbroke, chapters 8-9._

_G. W. Cooke, Memoirs of Bolingbroke, volume 1, chapter 13._

_W. Coxe, Memoirs of Marlborough, chapters 108-110._

_J. C. Collins, Bolingbroke, section 1._

_A. Hassall, Life of Bolingbroke, chapter 3._

See, also, ITALY: A. D. 1701-1713; SLAVERY, NEGRO: A. D. 1698-1776; CANADA: A. D.1711-1713; and NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1713.

UTRECHT: End--------

UTRECHT SCHOOL OF ST. MARTIN.

See EDUCATION, MEDIÆVAL: NETHERLANDS.

UXBRIDGE, Attempted Treaty of.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1645 (JANUARY-FEBRUARY).

UXELLODUNUM, Siege of.

See GAUL: B. C. 58-51.

UXMAL, Ruins of.

See MEXICO: ANCIENT, THE MAYA AND NAHUA PEOPLES.

UZES, The.

See PATCHINAKS.

{3594}

V.

VACALUS, The.

The ancient name of the river Waal.

VACCÆI, The.

One of the tribes of the Celtiberians in ancient Spain.

_T. Mommsen, History of Rome, book 4, chapter 1._

VACCINATION, The discovery of.

See MEDICAL SCIENCE: 18TH CENTURY.

VACOMAGI, The.

A tribe in ancient Caledonia, whose territory extended along the border of the Highlands, from the Moray Firth to the Tay.

See BRITAIN: CELTIC TRIBES.

VACSLAV.

See WENCESLAUS.

VADIMONIAN LAKE, Battle of the.

See ROME: B. C. 295-191.

VAISYAS.

See CASTE SYSTEM OF INDIA.

VALDEMAR I. (called The Great), King of Denmark, A. D. 1157-1182.

Valdemar I., King of Sweden, 1266-1275.

Valdemar II., King of Denmark, 1202-1241.

Valdemar III., King of Denmark, 1340-1375.

VALDEVEZ, The Tourney of.

See PORTUGAL: A. D. 1095-1325.

VALEA ALBA, Battle of (1476).

See BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: 14-18TH CENTURIES (ROUMANIA, ETC.)

VALENCIA: A. D. 1031-1092. The seat of a Moorish kingdom.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1031-1086.

VALENCIENNES: Start--------

VALENCIENNES: A. D. 1566. Crushing of the first revolt against Spanish tyranny in the Netherlands.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1566-1568.

VALENCIENNES: A. D. 1576. The Spanish Fury.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1575-1577.

VALENCIENNES: A. D. 1583. Submission to Spain.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1584-1585.

VALENCIENNES: A. D. 1656. Siege and failure of Turenne.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1653-1656.

VALENCIENNES: A. D. 1677. Taken by Louis XIV.

See NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1674-1678.

VALENCIENNES: A. D. 1679. Cession to France.

See NIMEGUEN, THE PEACE OF.

VALENCIENNES: A. D. 1793. Siege and capture by the Austrians.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (JULY-DECEMBER) PROGRESS OF THE WAR.

VALENCIENNES: A. D. 1794. Recovery by the French.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1794 (JANUARY-JULY).

VALENCIENNES: End--------

VALENS, Roman Emperor (Eastern), A. D. 364-378.

VALENTIA.

One of the Roman provinces formed in Britain, extending from the wall of Hadrian to the wall of Antoninus, covering southern Scotland. It was named in honor of the Emperor Valentinian.

See BRITAIN: A. D. 323-337; and 367-370.

VALENTINE, Pope, A. D. 827, September to October.

VALENTINIAN I., Roman Emperor (Western), A. D. 364-375.

Valentinian II., Roman Emperor (Western), 375-392.

Valentinian III., Roman Emperor (Western), 425-455.

VALERIAN, Roman Emperor, A. D. 253-260.

VALERIAN LAWS.

See ROME: B. C. 509.

VALERIO-HORATIAN LAWS, The.

See ROME: B. C. 449.

VAL-ES-DUNES, Battle of (1047).

See NORMANDY: A. D. 1035-1063.

VALLACHIA.

See BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES.

VALLACHS, The.

See WALLACHS.

VALLADOLID, Battle of (1813).

See MEXICO: A. D. 1810-1819.

VALLANDIGHAM, Clement L., The arrest of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863 (MAY-JUNE).

VALLEY FORGE: Washington's army in winter quarters.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1777 (JANUARY-DECEMBER).

VALLI. VALLUM.

See CASTRA.

VALMY, Battle of.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1792 (SEPTEMBER-DECEMBER).

VALOIS, The House of.

The direct line of the Capetian kings of France, descendants of Hugh Capet, ended in 1328, with the death of Charles IV. The crown then passed to the late king's cousin, Philip of Valois, son of Charles Count of Valois, who was the second son of Philip III. He became Philip VI. in the series of French kings, and with him began the royal dynasty or House of Valois, which came to an end in 1589, on the assassination of Henry III., yielding the throne to the Bourbon family.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1314-1328.

For source of the name.

See BOURBON, THE HOUSE OF.

VALOUTINA, Battle of.

See RUSSIA: A. D. 1812 (JUNE-SEPTEMBER).

VALTELINE, Annexation to the Cisalpine Republic.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1797 (MAY-OCTOBER).

VALTELINE WAR.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1624-1626.

VAN BUREN, Martin. Presidential election and administration.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1836, to 1841.

Defeat in Presidential Election.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1840.

The Free Soil Movement.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1848.

VANCOUVER'S ISLAND.

See BRITISH COLUMBIA.

VANDALIA, The proposed western colony of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1765-1768.

VANDALS: Start--------

VANDALS: Origin and early movements.

"Gibbon declares that a striking resemblance, in manners, complexion, religion, and language, indicates that the Goths and Vandals were originally one great people; and he cites the testimony of Pliny and Procopius in support of this belief. According to this theory, therefore, the Vandals are of the Teutonic stock. Other learned men have endeavoured to identify them with the Wendes; and the Wendes, as we have seen, according to the authority of Jornandes and others, were members of the Slavic race. The question has been examined, with great learning and ingenuity, by M. L. Marcus, Professor at the College of Dijon, in a work upon Vandal history. His conclusion, drawn from a comparison of what Tacitus, Pliny, Procopius, and Jornandes have left us upon the subject, is favourable to the hypothesis of Gibbon. Between the Wendes and the Vindili of Pliny, who were undoubtedly Vandals, he considers that no nearer point of union can be found than that of the Asiatic origin common to all nations of Slavic and Teutonic blood. {3595} He accounts for the fact that some confusion upon the subject subsists in ancient writers, by the supposition that the Slaves, after the great migration of Goths and Vandals to the South, occupied the locality they had abandoned on the coasts of the Baltic, and became inheritors of the name, as well as of the land, of their predecessors. Hence they were commonly, though incorrectly, called Vindili, or Vandals. … The earliest locality of the tribe, so far as authentic history can trace them, seems to have been the district between the Vistula and the Elbe. Here they were found by the Langobardi, in their migration towards the South. … In the time of Pliny, we have that writer's testimony to the fact that the Vandals were still to be found between the two rivers. But during the next two centuries their unwarlike habits must have tended to diminish their importance among their fierce and active neighbours, of whom the Goths were the most formidable, and probably the most aggressive. Tacitus, at any rate, in his tractate upon the Germans [A. D. 100], merely notices them by name. … Another half-century finds them in a strong position among the mountains which form the northern frontier of Bohemia. It is certain that they took part in the great Marcomannic war [A. D. 168-180]. … In the treaty made by Commodus, the son of Marcus Aurelius, with the Marcomanni [A. D. 180], the Vandals are one of the tribes secured from the hostility of those persevering enemies of the Roman empire. At this time, Ptolemy informs us that the Vandals occupied the districts lying around the sources of the Elbe; and all other investigation confirms the statement." A hundred years later, the Vandals appear to have been planted in a district on the Danube, east of the Theiss; from which they were soon afterwards driven by the Goths. They were then permitted by the emperor Constantine to pass the frontiers of the empire and settle in Pannonia, where they accepted Christianity and exhibited "the greatest aptitude for commerce and the arts of peace." Despite their Christianity, however, and despite their aptitude for the "arts of peace," the Vandals, after seventy years of friendly neighboring with the Romans, joined the savage pack of Alans, Sueves and Burgundians which, on the last day of the year 406, broke into Gaul and shattered the empire and the civilization of Rome beyond the Alps.

_J. G. Sheppard, The Fall of Rome, lecture 7._

ALSO IN: _T. Hodgkin, Italy and her Invaders, book 3, chapter 2 (volume 2)._

VANDALS: A. D. 406-409. Final Invasion of Gaul.

See GAUL: A. D. 406-409.

A. D. 409-414. Settlement in Spain.

See SPAIN: A. D. 409-414.

VANDALS: A. D. 428. Conquests in Spain.

"After the retreat of the Goths [A. D. 418] the authority of Honorius had obtained a precarious establishment in Spain, except only in the province of Gallicia, where the Suevi and the Vandals had fortified their camps in mutual discord and hostile independence. The Vandals prevailed, and their adversaries were besieged in the Nervasian hills, between Leon and Oviedo, till the approach of Count Asterius compelled, or rather provoked, the victorious barbarians to remove the scene of war to the plains of Bætica. The rapid progress of the Vandals soon required a more effectual opposition, and the master-general Castinus marched against them with a numerous army of Romans and Goths. Vanquished in battle by an inferior enemy, Castinus fled with dishonour to Tarragona. … Seville and Carthagena became the reward, or rather the prey, of the ferocious conquerors."

_E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 33._

Southern Spain, the ancient Bætica, acquired from the Vandals the name Vandalusia, which became Andalusia.

_R. G. Latham, Ethnology of Europe, chapter 2._

VANDALS: A. D. 429-439. Conquests in Africa.

In May, A. D. 429, the Vandals passed from Spain into Africa, invited by Count Boniface, the Roman governor of the African province. The latter had been deceived by an intriguing rival, Count Aetius, who persuaded him that the imperial Court at Ravenna were planning his disgrace and death. Thus incited to rebellion, as an act of self defense, he called the Vandals to his help. The latter had just fallen under the leadership of a new and terrible king—the bold and ruthless Genseric, who was destined to make the name of his people a proverb through all time for ferocity and barbarism. To the Vandals were united the Alans, and Genseric invaded Africa with some 80,000 men. He was joined, moreover, by great numbers of disaffected native Mauritanians, or Moors, and was welcomed by swarms of the fanatical Donatists, whose "vandalism" could quite equal his own. Count Boniface shrank aghast from the terrible invasion he had summoned, and learning, too late, how foully he had been played upon, returned to his allegiance with penitent energy and zeal. He turned his arms against Genseric; but it was in vain. "The victorious barbarians insulted the open country; and Carthage, Cirta, and Hippo Regius were the only cities that appeared to rise above the general inundation. … The seven fruitful provinces, from Tangier to Tripoli, were overwhelmed. … The Vandals, where they found resistance, seldom gave quarter; and the deaths of their valiant countrymen were expiated by the ruin of the cities under whose walls they had fallen. Careless of the distinctions of age or sex or rank, they employed every species of indignity and torture to force from the captives a discovery of their hidden wealth." Defeated in a battle which he ventured, Boniface retired into Hippo Regius and stood a siege of fourteen months. A second battle, won by the Vandals, decided the fate of the city, but its inhabitants escaped, for the most part, by sea, before the barbarians broke in. The great Bishop of Hippo, the venerable St. Augustine, was in the city when the siege began, but died before it ended, in his seventy-sixth year. "When the city, some months after his death, was burned by the Vandals, the library was fortunately saved which contained his voluminous writings." Hippo fell in the summer of A. D. 431. It was not until eight years later that Carthage succumbed,—taken treacherously, by surprise, on the 9th of October, 439; being 585 years after the destruction of the ancient city by the younger Scipio. The provinces of Africa were now fully in the possession of the Vandals, and the loss of their cor

_E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 33._

ALSO IN: _J. C. L. de Sismondi, Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 7._

_T. Hodgkin, Italy and Her Invaders, book 3, chapter 2._

VANDALS: A. D. 429-477. In Sicily.

See SICILY: A. D. 429-525.

{3596}

VANDALS: A. D. 431-533. Ruin of Africa under their dominion.

"The Vandals were bigoted Arians and their government was peculiarly tyrannical; they always treated the Roman inhabitants of Africa as political enemies, and persecuted them as religious opponents. The Visigoths in Spain had occupied two thirds of the subjugated lands, the Ostrogoths in Italy had been satisfied with one third; and both these people had acknowledged the civil rights of the Romans as citizens and Christians. The Vandals adopted a different policy. Genseric reserved immense domains to himself and to his sons. He divided the densely peopled and rich districts of Africa proper among the Vandal warriors, exempting them from taxation and binding them to military service. … They seized all the richest lands, and the most valuable estates, and exterminated the higher class of the Romans. Only the poorer proprietors were permitted to preserve the arid and distant parts of the country. Still, the number of the Romans excited the fears of the Vandals, who destroyed the walls of the provincial towns in order to prevent the people from receiving succours from the Eastern Empire. … When Genseric conquered Carthage, his whole army amounted only to 50,000 warriors; yet this small horde devoured all the wealth of Africa in the course of a single century, and, from an army of hardy soldiers, it was converted Into a caste of luxurious nobles living in splendid villas round Carthage. In order fully to understand the influence of the Vandals on the state of the country which they occupied, it must be observed that their oppressive government had already so far lowered the condition and reduced the numbers of the Roman provincials, that the native Moors began to reoccupy the country from which Roman industry and Roman capital had excluded them. … As the property of the province was destroyed, Its Roman inhabitants perished."

_G. Finlay, Greece Under the Romans, chapter 3, section 5._

VANDALS: A. D. 455. The sack of Rome by Genseric.

See ROME: A. D. 455

VANDALS: A. D. 533-534. End of the kingdom and nation.