Which War?

At the end of this month the people of Deerfield, Massachusetts will observe the 318th anniversary of the 1704 Raid on Deerfield. This was not the first attack on the town in its early decades, nor the last, but it was definitely the most devastating.

But nowadays people are a little vague about why it happened.

Often it's attributed to the "French and Indian War." Right enemies, but wrong war. That one was in 1754-1763, part of the global Seven Years' War. The Deerfield Raid was half a century earlier, part of a different conflict waged across Europe and the colonies.

That war was known as Queen Anne's War, and lasted from 1702 to 1713. It was basically a sideshow of the War of the Spanish Succession, which started a year earlier and ended a year later.

The cause of the war was, basically, Habsburg inbreeding. The Habsburg dynasty ruled a huge chunk of the world: Austria, Hungary, northern Italy, various bits of Germany, Belgium, Spain, parts of Italy, Mexico, Peru, other parts of South America, some pieces of Africa, the Philippines — and far too many minor duchies, islands, and colonies to list. They divided it all up among different branches of the family, but the clan remained closely allied against their two primary enemies: the Bourbon dynasty of France, and the loose coalition of Protestant kingdoms in northern Europe led by the British.

To keep their vast dominions together, the Habsburgs married within the family, making heavy use of their political clout to get special dispensations from the Pope to allow unions which otherwise would be illegal.

The end result of all that was King Charles II of Spain. His parents were uncle and niece, and their parents were all first cousins. Any geneticist will tell you this is a terrible idea, and a look at the official portrait of the King bears that out. The poor man couldn't chew his food properly because his Habsburg chin was so exaggerated. He had a whole raft of other chronic health problems, and it's not really surprising that he was unable to produce an heir. Nor did he have any brothers or sisters to inherit the Spanish empire.

Actually, the problem wasn't enough heirs, it was too many. Without an immediate blood relative to inherit, the line of succession got hopelessly tangled up in a mass of claimants — Habsburgs, Bourbons (because when they weren't fighting wars they were swapping princesses to keep the peace), and various minor royalty across Europe. 

When Charles died, he left the entire Kingdom of Spain and all its dominions to Philip of Anjou, who was the grandson of Louis XIV of France. A Bourbon, and in the line of succession to the throne of France. This was of course intolerable to the other Habsburgs and the British. Spain plus France would dominate Europe. Alliances quickly reshuffled and a global brawl broke out.

The French side included France and Spain, plus their extensive colonial empires (including Canada and Louisiana). Their allies at the start of the war included Bavaria, Savoy (in northwest Italy), the Spanish-ruled Kingdom of Naples, the Spanish Netherlands (modern Belgium) — and a number of Native American groups including the Abenaki Confederacy, some Mohawk bands, the Choctaws, the Natchez, and some smaller groupings.

On the other side were England, the Austrian Empire, the Dutch Republic, the Kingdom of Prussia, Portugal, and all of their colonies and allied tribes. Including, of course, the Massachusetts Bay Colony, with Deerfield sitting all by itself at the northwestern frontier.

The war lasted 13 years, involving battles across Europe, in North America, in India and elsewhere in Asia, and lots of "privateering" at sea. And, of course, the Raid on Deerfield. Several countries switched sides during the conflict, or dropped out when the expense got too great.

When all the dust cleared in 1714, Philip of Anjou remained as Philip V of Spain. France had turned one of its most dangerous enemies into a family-run ally, though the price was that France and Spain could never have the same monarch. Spain kept her colonial empire but had to hand off all her dependencies in Europe to Habsburg Austria. France lost her colonies in Acadia and Newfoundland, and many of the French settlers there migrated to Louisiana. Britain also gained control of Gibraltar, and access to trade with Spain's colonial empire. Oh, and John Churchill got to be Duke of Marlborough for winning a lot of battles.

In short, fifty people in Deerfield got killed and a hundred taken off to Canada as prisoners because too many Habsburgs married their cousins.