Most wars in early modern Europe involved composite monarchy to some degree but the War of Spanish Succession was one in which it was central. With the death of the last Spanish Habsburg, Charles II, that monarchy was fought over by Philip of Anjou, Louis XIV's grandson, and Charles, son of Emperor Leopold I of the Austrian Habsburgs. The conflict was triggered by a determination to keep the Spanish monarchy together; it was willed to Philip on condition he accepted the inheritance of all its various polities and reject a compromise partition. While the preservation of an existing personal union was the immediate issue, the prospect of a new and greater one, a Franco-Spanish Bourbon monarchy, haunted the maritime allies, with the union of French and Spanish naval resources a particular concern.

As the storm broke on the continent, the sky was dark in Edinburgh. The 1703 session of the estates passed a trifecta of bills which asserted Scottish sovereignty: the Act of Security, the Act Anent Peace and War, and the Wine Act. Combined with English responses they brought relations between the British kingdoms to a nadir. The European conflict's shadow was cast over the Anglo-Scottish crisis. The naval relationship did not deteriorate in parallel with the political one despite the War of Spanish Succession presenting similar issues to the Nine Years War. The embargo on France was re-imposed, but there were fewer seizures in Scottish waters. The royal navy had not stepped back; there were more convoys to Scotland and occasionally the royal naval frigates as cruisers that the Scottish privy council had sought with minimal success in the previous decade. Otherwise, the change was one of monarchs, and Anne's hand can be seen in some of the relevant decisions.

The revival of the Scottish navy had not in practice diminished the English royal navy's usefulness to Scotland. Nevertheless, there would seem no denying the reality of there being now two separate naval institutions. The existence of only one navy in the monarchy had been instrumental in the incorporation of the Scottish seas into the British, so the changed situation was potentially problematic. The question of salutes between the two royal navies should have arisen every time they met and could easily have sparked a confrontation.