Treaty of Utrecht

The Treaty of Utrecht, which established the Peace of Utrecht, is a series of individual peace treaties, rather than a single document, signed by the belligerents in the War of the Spanish Succession, in the Dutch city of Utrecht in March and April 1713. The treaties between several European states, including Spain, Great Britain, France, Portugal, Savoy and the Dutch Republic, helped end the war.

The treaties were concluded between the representatives of Louis XIV of France and of his grandson Philip V of Spain on one hand, and representatives of Anne of Great Britain, Victor Amadeus I of Sardinia, John V of Portugal and the United Provinces of the Netherlands on the other. They marked the end of French ambitions of hegemony in Europe expressed in the wars of Louis XIV, and preserved the European system based on the balance of power.

Negotiations

The War of the Spanish Succession was occasioned by the failure of the Habsburg king, Charles II of Spain to produce an heir. In fact, the Habsburgs were prone to pedigree collapse, and this shows in the appellation given to Carlos II, el Hechizado (the bedevilled), and in portraits of the Kings, like those by Diego Velázquez and Juan Carreño de Miranda. Dispute followed the death of Charles II in 1700, and fourteen years of war were the result.