Austria gave the Pope his most anxious hours. The joy of Rome at the fidelity of southern Germany was in the eighteenth century clouded by the growth of a spirit akin to Gallicanism: the spirit which would presently be known as Febronianism. Charles VI. had in 1740 left the Empire to his elder daughter, Maria Theresa, and Spain had contested the succession in the hope of winning for itself the provinces of Lombardy and Tuscany. In the war which followed Benedict took no side, but the conflicting armies devastated his territory and approached very near to Rome. His letters to Tencin reflect his distress and anxiety, no less than his helplessness. When the war was over, he sent a representative to the conference at Aix-la-Chapelle, where his rights were endangered by the contest of the two ambitious queens; Elizabeth of Spain was the last of the Farnese and was disposed to claim for her son the principality which Paul III. had wantonly conferred on his son Pier Luigi. The chief question that interested the Papacy was whether Don Philip should receive the investiture of Parma and Piacenza from Rome or the Empress, and Benedict had the satisfaction of seeing it virtually settled in favour of Rome. On Paul III. himself, and other nepotist Popes, Benedict passes a very severe judgment in his letters. For his part he severely excluded his relatives from Rome, and when a young son of his nephew came to study at the Clementine College, he took care that the boy should receive no particular favour. It is one of the remarkable features of Benedict's Pontificate that he won considerable respect even in the Protestant lands. Englishmen, perhaps, did not know, as we know from the Pope's letters, how deeply he sympathized with the exiled Stuarts. "James III." lived for some time at Rome on a pension provided by France, Spain, and the Papacy, and Benedict had often to relieve the financial embarrassment of the foolish and extravagant prince. His second son became Cardinal York, and, in conferring the dignity on him, Benedict declared that he would be pleased to withdraw it if ever Providence recalled him to the throne of his fathers. In spite of these amiable sympathies, Benedict was much appreciated by cultivated Englishmen, and in 1753 he reconstituted and enlarged the English hierarchy.