William III.

died soon after, in March, 1702; but Queen Anne took up his policy, which had become that of the English and Dutch peoples.
Louis XIV.

tried to break part of the on-coming storm by forming a league of neutrals among the other German States; but the emperor adroitly made use of the German feeling, and won to his side the Elector of Brandenburg by acknowledging him as king of Prussia, thus creating a North-German Protestant royal house, around which the other Protestant States naturally gathered, and which was in the future to prove a formidable rival to Austria.

The immediate result was that France and Spain, whose cause was thenceforth known as that of the two crowns, went into the war without any ally save Bavaria.

War was declared in May by Holland against the kings of France and Spain; by England against France and Spain, Anne refusing to recognize Philip V.
even in declaring war, because he had recognized James III.