halted in the neighbourhood of Blenheim, where the French and Bavarians, largely recruited and strongly posted, under Marshals Tallard and Marsin, had resolved to try the issue of battle. In the action which followed, the Guards had six officers killed and wounded. After the siege and surrender of Landau, which immediately followed this victory, the Guards returned with the army to the Netherlands, where, in the succeeding campaigns, they were hotly engaged, forcing the enemy’s lines at Helixem, and more especially at the great pitched contests of Ramilies, Oudenarde, and Malplaquet. In 1712 the peace of Utrecht once more restored them to their native land. Meanwhile the Spanish Peninsula was the scene of a conflict, although conducted on a less gigantic scale, embittered by the personal presence of the rival sovereigns—Philip of Bourbon and Charles of Austria. France having espoused the cause of Philip—which was really the cause of the people—had so vigorously pressed the allies, that notwithstanding the presence of a British force, they could hardly maintain a footing in the Peninsula for themselves, or for Charles as claimant to the throne. The war is remarkable as developing the military abilities of two most illustrious soldiers who successively directed the French armies—the Duke of Berwick and the Duc de Vendôme. In 1704 Gibraltar had been captured by a party of British sailors. A portion of the Guards garrisoned the fortress, and heroically withstood all the efforts of the Spaniards to recover it. In the following year the British fleet arrived, and forced Marshal Tessé to raise the siege, in consequence of which the Guards were withdrawn to form a part of the expedition under the Earl of Peterborough, which landed in Catalonia and captured Barcelona. Soon, however, this transient success was dissipated by the return of the French and Spanish armies, who in turn besieged the British. After enduring many privations, and making a gallant defence, the besieged were relieved in the eleventh hour by the presence of a British squadron with reinforcements. But this temporary aid only served, by elevating the hopes of the garrison, to induce a more serious disaster, in the utter rout of the allies at the battle of Almanaza which shortly followed, and virtually gave the kingdom to the House of Bourbon. Urged by Marlborough, the British Government were roused to prosecute the war with greater vigour in Spain than hitherto, as being a diversion of the utmost importance to the allied operations in the Netherlands, Germany, and Italy. Accordingly, in 1709 two formidable armies were sent out, one to act in Portugal, under Lord Galway, and the other in Spain, under Generals Staremberg and Stanhope. The latter of these included a battalion of the Scots Fusilier Guards. Advancing upon Madrid, everything seemed to promise success to their enterprise—the speedy downfall of the Bourbon dynasty, and the establishment of the House of Austria upon the throne.