William died on the 16th of March, in consequence of a fall from his horse, and was succeeded by Anne, daughter of James II.  She was, however, but nominally the sovereign.  The infamously renowned Duke of Marlborough became the real monarch, and with great skill and energy prosecuted the eleven years’ war which ensued, which is known in history as the War of the Spanish Succession.  For many months the conflict raged with the usual fluctuations, the Austrian forces being commanded on the Rhine by the Duke of Marlborough, and in Italy by Prince Eugene.  Portugal soon joined the Austrian alliance, and Philip V. and the French becoming unpopular in Spain, a small party rose there, advocating the claims of the house of Austria.  Thus supported, Leopold, at Vienna, declared his son Charles King of Spain, and crowned him as such in Vienna.  By the aid of the English fleet he passed from Holland to England, and thence to Lisbon, where a powerful army was assembled to invade Spain, wrest the crown from Philip, and place it upon the brow of Charles III.

And now Leopold began to reap the bitter consequences of his atrocious conduct in Hungary.  The Hungarian nobles embraced this opportunity, when the imperial armies were fully engaged, to rise in a new and formidable invasion.  Francis Ragotsky, a Transylvanian prince, led in the heroic enterprise.  He was of one of the noblest and wealthiest families of the realm, and was goaded to action by the bitterest wrongs.  His grandfather and uncle had been beheaded; his father robbed of his property and his rank; his cousin doomed to perpetual imprisonment; his father-in-law proscribed, and his mother driven into exile.  The French court immediately opened a secret correspondence with Ragotsky, promising him large supplies of men and money, and encouraging him with hopes of the cooeperation of the Turks.  Ragotsky secretly assembled a band of determined followers, in the savage solitudes of the Carpathian mountains, and suddenly descended into the plains of Hungary, at the head of his wild followers, calling upon his countrymen to rise and shake off the yoke of the detested Austrian.  Adherents rapidly gathered around his standard; several fortresses fell into his hands, and he soon found himself at the head of twenty thousand well armed troops.  The flame of insurrection spread, with electric rapidity, through all Hungary and Transylvania.

The tyrant Leopold, as he heard these unexpected tidings, was struck with consternation.  He sent all the troops he could collect to oppose the patriots, but they could make no impression upon an indignant nation in arms.  He then, in his panic, attempted negotiation.  But the Hungarians demanded terms both reasonable and honorable, and to neither of these could the emperor possibly submit.  They required that the monarchy should no longer be hereditary, but elective, according to immemorial usage; that the Hungarians should have the right to resist illegal power without the charge of treason; that foreign officers and garrisons should be removed from the kingdom; that the Protestants should be reestablished in the free exercise of their religion, and that their confiscated estates should be restored.  The despot could not listen for one moment to requirements so just; and appalled by the advance of the patriots toward Vienna, he recalled the troops from Italy.