Peace of Utrecht

Peace of Utrecht, collective name for the treaties concluded between 1713 and 1715 that ended the War of the Spanish Succession and established a balance of power in Europe. The settlement included, among others, the treaties of Utrecht (April 11, 1713), for Western Europe, of Rastatt (March 1714), for the Habsburgs, and of Baden (September 1714), for the states of the Holy Roman Empire.

The Treaty of Utrecht, by which France made peace with Great Britain, the Dutch Republic, Prussia, Savoy, and Portugal, settled the Spanish succession question by recognizing the younger grandson of Louis XIV, Philip of Anjou, as Philip V, king of Spain, while stipulating that the Spanish and French kingdoms must never be united. Louis XIV for his part recognized the Protestant succession in Great Britain as provided for by the Act of Settlement of 1701. The Anglo-French conflict having spread in 1702 as Queen Anne’s War to their North American colonies, Louis XIV now ceded Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, and Hudson Bay Territory to the British. The treaty provided for the transfer to Emperor Charles VI of Milan, Naples, Sardinia, and the Spanish Netherlands, the last of which only after he had reached agreement with the Dutch over a Barrier Treaty (November 1715). Frederick William I of Prussia had his royal title recognized and obtained Upper (Spanish) Guelders and Neuchâtel in Switzerland. A separate Anglo-Spanish treaty of July 13, 1713, ceded Gibraltar and Minorca to Great Britain, together with the sole rights to the slave trade in the Spanish colonies in the Americas (the asiento). In the following month, Spain ceded Sicily to the Duke of Savoy. Louis XIV made peace separately with the Emperor Charles VI at Rastatt, in southern Germany, on March 7, 1714. Spain made peace with the Dutch on June 26, 1714, and with Portugal in February 1715. The Peace of Utrecht marked the final destruction of the French hegemonic threat to Europe, increased British prestige, and prepared the way for two decades of détente in Anglo-French relations.