M. de Vendome arranged his army in order of battle in a tolerably open plain, but embarrassed by little knolls in several places; very disadvantageous for the cavalry.  Immediately afterwards the cannon began to fire on both sides, and almost immediately the two links of the King of Spain prepared to charge.  After the battle had proceeded some time, M. de Vendome perceived that his centre began to give way, and that the left of his cavalry could not break the right of the enemies.  He thought all was lost, and gave orders accordingly to his men to retire towards Torija.  Straightway, too, he directed himself in that direction, with the King of Spain and a good part of his troops.  While thus retreating, he learnt that two of his officers had charged the enemy’s infantry with the cavalry they had at their orders, had much knocked it about and had rendered themselves masters, on the field of battle, of a large number of-prisoners, and of the artillery that the enemy had abandoned.  News so agreeable and so little expected determined the Duc de Vendome and the King of Spain to return to the battle with the troops that had followed them.  The day was, in fact, won just as night came on.  The enemies abandoned twenty pieces of cannon, two mortars, their wounded and their equipages; and numbers of them were taken prisoners.  But Staremberg, having all the night to himself, succeeded in retiring in good order with seven or eight thousand men.  His baggage and the majority of his waggons fell a prey to the vanquisher.  Counting the garrison of Brighuega, the loss to the enemy was eleven thousand men killed or taken, their ammunition, artillery, baggage, and a great number of flags and standards.

When we consider the extreme peril the Crown of Spain ran in these engagements, and that this time, if things had gone ill there was no resource, we tremble still.  Had a catastrophe happened, there was nothing to hope from France.  Its exhaustion and its losses would not have enabled it to lend aid.  In its desire for peace, in fact, it would have hailed the loss of the Spanish Crown as a relief.  The imprudence, therefore, of M. de Vendome in so readily falling into the snare laid for him, is all the more to be blamed.  He takes no trouble to inform himself of the dispositions of the enemy; he comes upon a place which he believes a mere post, but soon sees it contains a numerous garrison, and finds that the principal part of the enemy’s army is ready to fall upon him as he makes the attack.  Then he begins to see in what ship he has embarked; he sees the double peril of a double action to sustain against Stanhope, whom he must overwhelm by furious assault, and against Staremberg, whom he must meet and defeat; or, leave to the enemies the Crown of Spain, and perhaps the person of Philip V., as price of his folly.  Brighuega is gained, but it is without him.  Villaviciosa is gained, but it is also without him.  This hero is not sharp-sighted enough