the inefficient Charles was very reluctant to hazard a battle, the generals insisted upon it.  The Spaniards were speedily and totally routed.  Philip fled with a small body-guard to Lerida.  His array was thoroughly dispersed.  The conquerors pressed on toward Madrid, crossed the Ebro at Saragossa, where they again encountered, but a short distance from the city, an army strongly posted upon some heights.  Philip was already there.  The conflict was short but bloody, and the generals of Charles were again victorious.  Philip, with a disheartened remnant of his troops, retreated to Madrid.  The generals dragged the timid and reluctant Charles on to Madrid, where they arrived on the 28th of September.  There was no force at the capital to oppose them.  They were received, however, by the citizens of the metropolis as foreign conquerors.  Charles rode through the deserted streets, meeting only with sullen silence.  A few who were hired to shout, were pelted, by the populace, with mud, as traitors to their lawful king.  None flocked to his standard.  Nobles, clergy, populace, all alike stood aloof from him.  Charles and his generals were embarrassed and perplexed.  They could not compel the nation to receive the Austrian king.

Philip, in the meantime, who had much energy and popularity of character, was rapidly retrieving his losses, and troops were flocking to his camp from all parts of Spain.  He established his court at Yalladolid, about one hundred and fifty miles north-east from Madrid.  His troops, dispersed by the two disastrous battles, were reassembled at Lerida.  The peasants rose in large numbers and joined them, and cut off all communication between Charles at Madrid and his ships at Barcelona.  The Spanish grandees sent urgent messages to France for succors.  General Yendome, at the head of three thousand horse, swept through the defiles of the Pyrenees, and, with exultant music and waving banners, joined Philip at Valladolid.  Universal enthusiasm was excited.  Soon thirty thousand infantry entered the camp, and then took positions on the Tagus, where they could cut off any reinforcements which might attempt to march from Portugal to aid the invaders.

Charles was apparently in a desperate situation.  Famine and consequent sickness were in his camp.  His army was daily dwindling away.  He was emphatically in an enemy’s country.  Not a soldier could stray from the ranks without danger of assassination.  He had taken Madrid, and Madrid was his prison.

CHAPTER XXII.

JOSEPH I. AND CHARLES VI.

From 1710 to 1717.

Perplexities in Madrid.—­Flight of Charles.—­Retreat of the Austrian
Army.—­Stanhope’s Division Cut Off.—­Capture of Stanhope.—­Staremberg
Assailed.—­Retreat to Barcelona.—­Attempt to Pacify Hungary.—­The
Hungarian Diet.—­Baronial Crowning of Kagotsky.—­Renewal of the
Hungarian War.—­Enterprise of Herbeville.—­The