now hoped to procure the entire dominions of Spain for his own family. [Sidenote: Plottings of the Austrian and French parties for the succession.] The leader of the party favoring the Hapsburg, or Austrian, succession in Spain was the queen-mother, María Ana, herself of the House of Austria. After many vicissitudes she at length seemed to have achieved a victory, when she brought about the marriage of Charles II to an Austrian princess in 1689, the same year in which the king’s former wife, a French princess, had died. The situation was all the more favorable in that Louis XIV declared war against Spain in that year for the fourth time in the reign. The very necessities of the war, added to the now chronic bad administration and the general state of misery in Spain, operated, however, to arouse discontent and to provoke opposition to the party in power. Thus the French succession was more popular, even during the war, than that of the allied House of Austria. After the war was over, the French propaganda was established on a solid basis, for it was evident, now, that Charles II could not long survive. Louis XIV put forward his grandson, Philip of Anjou, as a candidate, and the Holy Roman Emperor urged the claims of his son, the Archduke Charles. Not only did Philip have the weaker hereditary claim, but he also had the renunciation of his grandmother, María Teresa, wife of Louis XIV, against him. The last-named objection was easily overcome, since Spain had never paid the promised dowry of María Teresa, wherefore Louis XIV held that the renunciation was of no effect. [Sidenote: Success of the French party.]