or Habsburg royal Archduke Charles, backed by the Grand Alliance, would succeed to the Spanish throne and assume control over Spain's colonial empire after Charles II of Spain died on 1 November 1700. Archduke Charles landed at Lisbon in March 1704 at the head of a large military expedition to conduct a campaign in the Iberian Peninsula. In May of that year, Royal Navy officer Sir George Rooke led a combined Anglo-Dutch fleet into the Mediterranean, accompanied by Austrian military officer Prince George of Hesse-Darmstadt and Dutch admiral Gerard Callenburgh. After an attempt to capture Barcelona on 30 May was frustrated by a lack of support, the expedition sailed for the Portuguese port of Lagos. There, they linked up with an English squadron under the command of Sir Cloudesley Shovell there on 27 June and proceeded to anchor near Tétouan. While at anchor, senior officers in the Anglo-Dutch fleet drafted a plan to attack Gibraltar, which was under Bourbon control. On 28 July, they presented their plan to Prince George, who gave it his approval. Beginning on 1 August, a Grand Alliance force laid siege to Gibraltar, capturing it three days later. News of the capture soon reached France, and the French Navy responded by combined their squadrons at Toulon and Brest into one fleet (consisting of 50 ships of the line, 24 galleys, 9 frigates and 9 fire ships) under the command of the Count of Toulouse and Victor-Marie d'Estrées which set sail for Gibraltar roughly a week after its capture. Rooke received intelligence that a French fleet had been spotted approaching Gibraltar; leaving half of the marines under his command there, he immediately set off with the Anglo-Dutch fleet (which comprised 53 ships of the line, 6 frigates and 7 fire ships) to engage the French. Battle On 24 August, the two fleets engaged each other off the city of Málaga after the French fleet was spotted on 22 August. Rooke and Callenburgh ordered their combined fleet to form a line of battle, while the French commanders directed their ships to form a parallel crescent. A general engagement subsequently ensued over the course of the day, with the two fleets exchanging damaging broadsides which inflicted numerous casualties. French galleys would occasionally sail into the battle line to tow damaged ships of the line out of the battlefield to safety. Meanwhile, the Anglo-Dutch fleet suffered from a shortage of