owed her lead, being
perfectly satisfied with the conditions of the First Barrier Treaty,
which had been drawn up and agreed upon between the States-General and
the English government on October 29, 1709. By this secret treaty the
Dutch obtained the right to hold and to garrison a number of towns along
the French frontier, the possession of which would render them the real
masters of Belgium. Indeed it was manifest that, although the Dutch did
not dispute the sovereign rights of the Archduke Charles, they intended
to make the southern Netherlands an economic dependency of the
Republic, which provided for its defence.

The negotiations at Geertruidenberg dragged on until July, 1710, and
were finally broken off owing to the insistence of the Dutch envoys,
Buys and Van Dussen, upon conditions which, even in her exhausted state,
France was too proud to concede. Meanwhile Marlborough and Eugene,
unable to tempt Villars to risk a battle, contented themselves with a
succession of sieges. Douay, Bethune, St Venant and Aine fell, one after
the other, the French army keeping watch behind its strongly fortified
lines. This was a very meagre result, but Marlborough now felt his
position to be so insecure that he dared not take any risks. His wife,
so long omnipotent at court, had been supplanted in the queen's favour;
Godolphin and the Whig party had been swept from power; and a Tory
ministry bent upon peace had taken their place. Marlborough knew that
his period of dictatorship was at an end, and he would have resigned his
command but for the pressing instances of Eugene, Heinsius and other
leaders of the allies.

The desire of the Tory ministry to bring the long drawn-out hostilities
to an end was accentuated by the death, on April 17, 1711, of the
Emperor Joseph, an event which left his brother Charles heir to all the
possessions of the Austrian Habsburgs. The Grand Alliance had been
formed and the war waged to maintain the balance of power in Europe. But
such a result would not be achieved by a revival of the empire of
Charles V in the person of the man who had now become the head of the
House of Austria. Even had the Whigs remained in office, they could
hardly have continued to give active support to the cause of the
Habsburg claimant in Spain.

One of the consequences of the death of Joseph I, then, was to render
the Tory minister, Henry St John, more anxious to enter into
negotiations for peace; another was the paralysing