The Viceroy, Don Guillermo Rocafull, was not in the island. He returned at once and proceeded to repair the fortifications of Ciudadela, bringing several families to re-people the place from Majorca and Valencia. The castle of San Felipe at Port Mahon was also repaired and strengthened.
The piracies continued until well into the eighteenth century, and kept the people in a constant state of terror and alarm; but confidence slowly returned, and Minorca had long been free from actual invasion when the War of the Succession broke out, after the death of Charles II., the last of the Austrian Kings of Spain.
The people of Spain had long been misgoverned, impoverished, and oppressed when the last king of the House of Austria died and left the War of Succession as a legacy to his subjects.
The descendant of Maria Teresa, sister of Charles II. and wife of Louis XIV. of France, would have had the best right if her marriage had not been allowed on condition of the most solemn renunciation of the crown of Spain for the offspring of it. The next heir was the Emperor Leopold I., descended from a sister of Philip IV. of Spain, the father of Charles II. He resigned his claim to his second son, the Archduke Charles. Strongly in favour of the Austrian claim, the unhappy King was forced by priestly threats on his deathbed to sign a will declaring Philip, Duke of Anjou, grandson of Louis XIV. and Maria Teresa, to be heir to the Spanish monarchy. Philip was then seventeen. The Archduke Charles was fifteen.
Louis XIV. was strictly pledged to the Governments of England and Holland not to allow his grandson to succeed. In February 1701, in defiance of this solemn compact, Philip was sent to Madrid and proclaimed as Philip V. Castille acknowledged him. Aragon, Catalonia, and the Balearic Islands declared for the Archduke Charles as Charles III. He was supported by England, Holland, Portugal, Savoy, and the Empire. War was declared on May 15, 1702, and the War of the Spanish Succession commenced. In March 1704 Charles III. arrived at Lisbon with four thousand Dutch and eight thousand English troops, where he was joined by Don Juan Henriquez, Admiral of Castille, one of the greatest of the Spanish nobles. On August 3 Gibraltar was taken, and garrisoned with two thousand men, the Prince of Hesse Darmstadt being the first Governor. Charles III. then proceeded to Barcelona, the almost impregnable castle of Monjuich having previously been captured by the Earl of Peterborough. Amidst great rejoicings Charles made his public entry on October 23, 1705. Peterborough entered Valencia in triumph on February 4, 1706, and Majorca declared for King Charles.