War of Devolution
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40 free War of Devolution trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The War of Devolution lasted barely a year, from May 1667 to May 1668, yet it set the pattern for half a century of European conflict. A young Louis XIV used an obscure point of inheritance law to claim a slice of the Spanish Netherlands, marched in with the largest army on the continent, and met almost no resistance. This quiz covers the legal argument that gave the war its odd name, the sieges and fast campaigns, the generals and engineers who made their reputations, and the diplomacy in London, The Hague and Madrid that persuaded the king to stop. It also follows the consequences, from the towns France kept to the grudges that fed the next war. It is written for history students, fans of the age of Louis XIV and anyone who enjoys the stories behind Europe's borders. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you will leave knowing more than when you started.
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Q 01Louis XIV fought the War of Devolution to claim Spanish lands in the name of which queen, his wife?
Maria Theresa
Maria Theresa had renounced her Spanish inheritance on marrying, but French lawyers called the promise void and said her rights had devolved to her husband.
Q 02Louis XIV's lawyers said his queen's renunciation of her Spanish inheritance was void because Madrid never paid what?
Her dowry
Her dowry of 500,000 gold écus was promised in the 1659 marriage treaty, but exhausted Spain never paid it, giving France its legal pretext.
Q 03Which treaty town, the burial place of Charlemagne, gave its name to the 1668 peace ending the War of Devolution?
Aix-la-Chapelle
Aix-la-Chapelle is the French name for Aachen, and the treaty signed there let Louis XIV keep Lille and other Flemish towns while handing a whole province back to Spain.
Q 04The Spanish Netherlands that Louis XIV invaded in 1667 lay mostly in which present-day country?
Belgium
Belgium covers most of the old Spanish Netherlands, which also took in Luxembourg and a strip of what is now northern France.
Q 05Which military engineer made his name at the 1667 siege of Lille and went on to build the citadel of Lille?
Vauban
Vauban called the citadel he then built at Lille the queen of citadels, after the king chose his plan over a rival design by his own superior.
Q 06Which real-life captain of the Musketeers, a hero of Dumas's novels, became governor of Lille after its 1667 capture?
D'Artagnan
D'Artagnan proved an unpopular governor who longed to return to battle, and he was killed at the siege of Maastricht in 1673.
Q 07Louis XIV, the young ruler who launched the War of Devolution in 1667, is best remembered by which nickname?
The Sun King
The Sun King had ruled in person only since 1661, and the War of Devolution was the first of the wars of expansion that filled the rest of his reign.
Q 08Under pressure from the French invasion, Spain finally recognised which kingdom's independence in February 1668?
Portugal
Portugal had been fighting to throw off Spanish rule since 1640, and the new war with France left Madrid unable to afford both fronts.
Q 09Spain's boy king and the Holy Roman Emperor, both opposed to Louis XIV in 1667, belonged to which dynasty?
Habsburg
Habsburg rulers in Madrid and Vienna were France's traditional rivals, yet Louis XIV's own mother and wife were both born into the family.
Q 10How did the Spanish governor stop the French army's advance toward Antwerp in the summer of 1667?
Flooding the land
Flooding the land by opening the water defences stopped the French short of Antwerp, so they turned back and besieged Lille instead.
Q 11Which marquise became Louis XIV's mistress in 1667, the year his armies invaded the Spanish Netherlands?
Madame de Montespan
Madame de Montespan gradually supplanted Louise de La Vallière as royal favourite and went on to have seven children with the king.
Q 12Reports that Spain's boy king had caught which often fatal disease helped persuade Louis XIV to make peace in 1668?
Smallpox
Smallpox seemed likely to kill the child, and his death could have handed Louis XIV his aims without any more fighting.
Q 13The citadel Louis XIV ordered at Lille straight after capturing the city in 1667 was built in which shape?
A pentagon
Q 21Which pardoned Fronde rebel returned to command in 1668 and seized a Spanish province for Louis XIV in two weeks?
The Grand Condé
The Grand Condé had fought for Spain against his own king until 1659, so this was his first command since returning from exile.
Q 22Which Spanish-ruled province on France's eastern border did Louis XIV conquer in 1668, then hand back within months?
Franche-Comté
Franche-Comté went back to Spain within months, but Louis XIV returned to take it permanently under the peace of 1678.
Q 23Which fortress town, begun by Spain only a year earlier, was the first target of the French invasion in 1667?
Charleroi
A pentagon with a bastion at each of its five corners let the guns on one bastion sweep the walls beside it, leaving attackers no blind spot.
Q 14Sir William Temple, who built the 1668 coalition against Louis XIV, later employed which satirist as secretary?
Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift worked for Temple at Moor Park from 1689, decades before he wrote Gulliver's Travels.
Q 15The French army that overran a Spanish province in two weeks in 1668 gained surprise by attacking in which season?
Winter
Winter was thought impractical for moving troops, so the February invasion caught fewer than 2,000 defenders unprepared.
Q 16Which sickly child king sat on the Spanish throne when his brother-in-law Louis XIV invaded in 1667?
Charles II
Charles II was so frail that Europe expected him to die young, which is why Louis XIV and the emperor secretly agreed how to divide his empire.
Q 17Which 1668 pact, brokered at The Hague by Sir William Temple, pressed Louis XIV to end the War of Devolution?
Triple Alliance
Triple Alliance members secretly agreed to use force against France if Louis XIV refused terms, a clause the French learned of within days.
Q 18Which Baltic kingdom was the last power to join the 1668 pact formed to restrain Louis XIV?
Sweden
Sweden signed three days after the peace, having held out for repayment of old war costs that Spain was left to pay.
Q 19Which 1659 peace ended a long Franco-Spanish war and arranged Louis XIV's marriage to a Spanish princess?
Treaty of the Pyrenees
The Treaty of the Pyrenees was signed on Pheasant Island, a border river island where the two kings met the next year to hand over the bride.
Q 20Which veteran general commanded the main French army that swept through the Spanish Netherlands in 1667?
Turenne
Turenne was still a Protestant during the campaign and converted to Catholicism only in October 1668, months after the peace.
Charleroi was so new that its defences were unfinished, so the Spanish wrecked the works and withdrew to Brussels without a fight.
Q 24Which Spanish king, the patron of Velázquez, died in 1665 and so triggered the War of Devolution dispute?
Philip IV
Philip IV was Louis XIV's uncle as well as his father-in-law, and his death left Spain to a small child under a regency.
Q 25Which queen mother governed Spain as regent for her young son throughout the War of Devolution?
Mariana of Austria
Mariana of Austria more than doubled her army in Flanders before the invasion, and the Mariana Islands were named in her honour in 1668.
Q 26Which finance minister told Louis XIV that the Spanish Netherlands were essential to French economic growth?
Jean-Baptiste Colbert
Jean-Baptiste Colbert then urged peace in 1668 for the same reason, money: the war was expensive and the French economy was in decline.
Q 27Which cardinal tied the renunciation of Louis XIV's Spanish bride to a payment Madrid could not afford?
Mazarin
Mazarin died in 1661, six years before the unpaid sum he had written into the marriage contract became a reason for war.
Q 28Which Dutch leader, later lynched by a mob in The Hague, tried to make Louis XIV retreat yet stay an ally?
Johan de Witt
Johan de Witt put the dilemma bluntly: abandoning Spain meant handing France the Netherlands, but defending her alone was folly.
Q 29Peace signed in which Dutch city in July 1667 ended the Second Anglo-Dutch War and freed both sides to oppose France?
Breda
Breda was still hosting the peace congress when French troops crossed the border, and the former enemies soon began talks on a common front.
Q 30England's king deserted his 1668 allies and joined Louis XIV in a secret 1670 pact named for which English town?
Dover
Dover's secret terms were delivered by the English king's sister and included his promise to announce a conversion to Catholicism.