In the year 1700, the last King of Spain from the House of Habsburg, Charles II, died. At this point, Spain had ceased to be the dominant European power it once was, but still held a large amount of territories throughout Europe, including most of modern-day Belgium and nearly half of modern-day Italy. Charles II, who was notoriously inbred and had no children, had been in poor health throughout his life, and the question of who would succeed to the Spanish throne was ever-present as Europe waited for him to die. As the royal families of Europe were heavily intermarried with each other, there were multiple candidates from other countries who could stake a claim. At the death of Charles II, two candidates sought the throne. Philip, Duke of Anjou, a paternal grandson of King Louis XIV of France, and Charles, Archduke of Austria, brother of the Holy Roman Emperor Joseph I (a third claimant, Joseph Ferdinand of Bavaria had previously been considered, but he died young).

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At the time, Philip of Anjou was third in line for the French throne, behind his father and older brother, and the possibility of France and Spain being united under one monarch was unacceptable to the European powers of the time. Archduke Charles, however was the younger brother of the Holy Roman Emperor and close in line to the throne himself, and a personal union of The Holy Roman Empire and Spain wasn't particularly appealing to the other powers of Europe either. Watching the situation with immense interest were the Maritime powers, England and the Dutch Republic, both ruled by the same man, William III of England and Stadtholder of the Dutch Republic. William III's position as King of England had been established by overthrowing James II, who was by the standards of the time, the rightful sovereign. James II had been overthrown largely for his pro-Catholic and pro-France policies, and his replacement by William had aligned England to the anti-French block. Louis XIV had been forced to accept William III as king of England, but he had been harboring James II, along with his son, James Edward Francis Stuart, in France. Initially wishing to avoid war, the various powers of Europe had made several attempts to partition the Spanish monarchy as a compromise.

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When Charles II died, he and the pro-French faction in Spain had decided to name Philip of Anjou as King of Spain to the entire Spanish inheritance, a decision that was contested by Charles of Austria. Following this, Louis XIV in France declared Philip of Anjou as having a claim to the throne of France. Louis also postured aggressively in Spanish Belgium. To both England and the Dutch Republic, French control of Belgium was an existential threat to either. For England, the ports in Belgium would provide an excellent staging ground for the invasion of England, whereas for the Dutch, French control of Belgium would mean having to share a direct land border with the French. Lastly, Louis declared that the Catholic James Edward Francis Stuart was the rightful king of England, a move of open hostility against the English and the Dutch. These actions, combined with existing anti-French sentiment in England and the Dutch Republic, brought the maritime powers to the side of Charles of Austria, and sparked the beginning of the War of the Spanish succession in 1701.

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As Spain had declared the French candidate Philip as their king, one objective the English and Dutch sought was dislodging Philip from Spain. Wishing to gain control of the Mediterranean, an Anglo-Dutch fleet laid siege to Gibraltar in 1704. The British (The English and Scottish crowns formally united during the war) and Dutch would fight on the anti-French side for another 9 years until the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, after which they accepted Philip of Anjou as king of Spain (minus Spain's Belgian and Italian territories), so long as he renounced any claims he had to the French throne. The Empire pulled out of the war a year later, and Philip's line rules Spain to this day. The Treaty of Utrecht was decidedly advantageous to Britain, awarding to Britain both the island of Menorca as well as Gibraltar from Spain, and Acadia (modern day Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island in Canada) from France. The British also gained the enormously lucrative right to sell slaves to the Spanish colonies.

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In short, in the early 1700s, France and Austria/The Empire fought a war over who would become the next king of Spain. England/Britain joined the Austrian/Imperial side, and after the war, the French candidate got most of Spain, but Britain kept Gibraltar and Menorca.