Changes

The effects of the war are evident today. In Gibraltar, Spain continues to want the territory back, where it is today still a British overseas territory. The rise of Britain after the war also enabled it to become the largest empire in history. In effect, by dominating sea trade, after the collapse of the Dutch, Britain had a way to finance its overseas empire. This meant that after this war no major global conflict did not involve Britain to some level, as they now became the dominant trade and territorial empire across much of the globe. Today, this has meant many countries have effectively taken up the legacies of British imperial rule. In India, for instance, legacies on education, government, and language are evident. This is also true in the United States, despite divergence in governance such as in the parliamentary and congressional systems that evolved. <ref>For more on the legacy of Britain, connecting back to the War of the Spanish Succession, see: Satsuma, S. (2013) <i>Britain and colonial maritime war in the early eighteenth century: silver, seapower and the Atlantic.</i> Woodbridge, Suffolk ; Rochester, NY, The Boydell Press.</ref>

The war helped to lead to the downfall of France's monarchy, as it increasingly became isolated from its population and more centralized. High financial costs also led to debt that made it difficult for France to recover from. In France, and elsewherein Western Europe, particularly as the French Revolution became influential, the gradual move toward parliamentary systems began to hasten, as devastating wars showed the weakness of monarchy monarchical-led states. In effect, the road to Western Europe's democracies hastened due to the costliness and changes brought about from wars such as the War of the Spanish Succession. Furthermore, the War of the Spanish Succession showed that devastating wars could be created by simply having a monarch die without heirs. Creating systems that can withstand changes to any individual family or households proved to be more attractive as the European Enlightenment continued. The states we see today in Western Europe reflect the evolutionary changes that were shaped by the war, as its financial and human costs began to lead to different forms of states.<ref>For more on the rise of Western Europe's democracies, and the long road, see: Waltraud Schelkle, Georg Elwert, & Martin Kohli (eds.) (2000) <i>Paradigms of social change: modernization, development, transformation, evolution.</i> Frankfurt/Main, Campus-Verl. [u.a.], pg. 106.</ref>