Part 211

"The eyes of King Ferdinand VII. were scarcely closed, September 29th, 1833, when the Apostolic party—whose strength lay in the north of Spain, and especially in Navarre and the Basque provinces —proclaimed his brother, Don Carlos, king under the title of Charles V. In order to offer a successful resistance to the Carlists, who were fighting for absolutism and priestcraft, there was no other course for the regent, Maria Christina, than to throw herself into the arms of the liberal party. So the seven years' war between Carlists and Christinos, from a war of succession, became a strife of principles and a war of citizens. At the outset, owing to the skill of General Zumalacarreguy, to whom the Christinos could oppose no leader of equal ability, the Carlists had the advantage in the field. Don Carlos threatened the Spanish frontiers from Portugal, where he had been living in exile with his dear nephew, Don Miguel. In this strait, Christina applied to England and France, and between those two states and Spain and Portugal was concluded the quadruple alliance of April 22d, 1834, the aim of which was to uphold the constitutional thrones of Isabella and Maria da Gloria, and to drive out the two pretenders, Carlos and Miguel. In that year both pretenders, who enjoyed to a high degree the favor of the Pope and the Eastern powers, had to leave Portugal. Carlos reached England on an English ship in June, but fled again in July, and, after an adventurous journey through France, appeared suddenly in Navarre, to inspire his followers with courage by the royal presence. The war was conducted with passion and cruelty on both sides. After the death of Zumalacarreguy at the siege of Bilbao, June 14th, 1835, the Christinos, who were superior in point of numbers, seemed to have the advantage. … The turning-point was reached when the command of the Christino army was committed to Espartero. In 1836 he defeated the Carlists in the murderous battle of Luchana. In 1837, when Carlos advanced into the neighborhood of Madrid, he hastened to the succor of the capital, and compelled him to retreat. To these losses were added disunion in the Carlist camp. The utterly incapable, dependent pretender was the tool of his Camarilla, which made excellence in the catechism a more important requisite for the chief command than military science, and which deposed the most capable generals to put its own creatures in command. The new commander-in-chief, Guergué, said, bluntly, to Carlos, 'We, the blockheads and ignoramuses, have yet to conduct your Majesty to Madrid; and whoever does not belong in that category is a traitor.' This Apostolic hero was defeated several times by Espartero in 1838, and the enthusiasm of the northern provinces gradually cooled down. He was deposed, and the chief command intrusted to the cunning Maroto. … As he [Maroto] did not succeed in winning victories over Espartero, who overmatched him, he concluded, instead, August 31st, 1839, the treaty of Vergara, in accordance with which he went over to the Christinos, with his army, and by that means obtained full amnesty, and the confirmation of the privileges of Navarre and the Basque provinces. After this, Don Carlos's cause was hopelessly lost. He fled, in September, to France, with many of his followers, and was compelled to pass six years in Bourges under police supervision. In 1845, after he had resigned his claims in favor of his eldest son, the Duke of Montemolin, he received permission to depart, and went to Italy. He died in Trieste, March 10th, 1855. His followers, under Cabrera, carried on the war for some time longer in Catalonia. But they, too, were overcome by Espartero, and in July, 1840, they fled, about 8,000 strong, to France, where they were put under surveillance. The civil war was at an end, but the strife of principles continued. Espartero, who had been made Duke of Victory (Vittoria), was the most important and popular personage in Spain, with whom the regent, as well as everybody else, had to reckon. In the mean time Christina had contrived to alienate the respect and affection of the Spaniards, both by her private life and her political conduct. Her liberal paroxysms were not serious, and gave way, as soon as the momentary need was past, to the most opposite tendency. … In 1836 the Progressists apprehended a reaction, and sought to anticipate it. Insurrections were organized in the larger cities, and the constitution of 1812 was made the programme of the revolt. … Soldiers of the guard forced their way into the palace, and compelled [Christina] to accept the constitution of 1812. A constitutional assembly undertook a revision of this, and therefrom resulted the new constitution of 1837. Christina swore to it, but hoped, by controlling the elections, to bring the Moderados into the Cortes and the ministry. When she succeeded in this, in 1840, she issued a municipal ordinance placing the appointment of the municipal authorities in the hands of the administration. This occasioned riots in Madrid and other cities; and when Christina commissioned Espartero, who was just returning victorious, to suppress the revolt in Madrid, he refused to constitute himself the tool of an unpopular policy. But he was the only man who could hold in check the revolution which threatened to break out on all sides; and so, September 16th, 1840, he had to be named minister president. … Under such circumstances the regency had but little charm for Christina, and there were, moreover, other causes working with these to the same result. {3015} Soon after the death of her husband, she had bestowed her favor on a young lifeguardsman named Munoz, made him her chamberlain, and been secretly married to him. This union soon published itself in a rich blessing of offspring, but it was not until the year 1844 that her public marriage with Munoz, and his elevation to the rank of duke (of Rianzares) and grandee of Spain took place. Having by this course of life forfeited the fame of an honest woman, and exposed herself to all sorts of attacks, she preferred to leave the country. October 12th, she abdicated the regency, and journeyed to France. May 8th, 1841, the newly elected Cortes named Espartero regent of Spain, and guardian of Queen Isabella and her sister, the Infanta Luisa Fernanda. … Since he knew how actively Christina, supported by Louis Philippe, was working against him with gold and influence, he entered into closer relations with England, whereupon his envious foes and rivals accused him of the sale of Spanish commercial interests to England. Because he quieted rebellious Barcelona by a bombardment in 1842, he was accused of tyranny. In 1843 new insurrections broke out in the south; Colonel Prim hastened to Catalonia, and set himself at the head of the soldiers whom Christina's agents had won over by a liberal use of money; Espartero's deadliest foe, General Narvaez, landed in Valencia, and marched into Madrid at the head of the troops. Espartero, against whom Progressists and Moderados had conspired together, found himself forsaken, and embarked at Cadiz, July 26th 1843, for England, whence he did not dare to return to his own country until 1848. In November, 1843, the thirteen-year-old Isabella was declared of age. She assumed the government, made Narvaez, now Duke of Valencia, minister president, and recalled her mother. Thereby gate and doors were opened to the French influence, and the game of intrigue and reaction recommenced. In 1845 the constitution of 1837 was altered in the interests of absolutism. … In order to secure to his house a lasting influence in Spain, and acquire for it the reversion of the Spanish throne, Louis Philippe, in concert with Christina, effected, October 16th, 1846, the marriage of Isabella with her kinsman Francis of Assis, and of the Infanta Luisa with the Duke of Montpensier, his own youngest son. (At first his plan was to marry Isabella also to one of his sons, the Duke of Aumale, but he abandoned it on account of the energetic protest of the Palmerston cabinet, and, instead, chose for Isabella, in Francis of Assis, the person who, by reason of his mental and physical weakness, would be least likely to stand in the way of his son Montpensier.) This secretly negotiated marriage cost Louis Philippe the friendship of the English cabinet."

_W. Müller, Political History of Modern Times, section 9._

ALSO IN: _W. Bollaert, The Wars of Succession in Portugal and Spain, 1826 to 1840, volume 2._

_C. F. Henningsen, A Twelve Months' Campaign with Zumalacarregui._

_Sir H. L. Bulwer (Lord Dalling), Life of Palmerston, volume 3, chapter 7._

_C. A. Fyffe, History of Modern Europe, volume 2, chapter 6._

SPAIN: A. D. 1845-1860. Cuba in danger from the United States. Filibustering movements. The Ostend Manifesto.

See CUBA: A. D. 1845-1860.

SPAIN: A. D. 1861. Allied intervention in Mexico.

See MEXICO: A. D. 1861-1867.

SPAIN: A. D. 1866. War with Peru. Repulse from Callao.

See PERU: A. D. 1826-1876.

SPAIN: A. D. 1866-1873. Vices and misgovernment of Isabella. Revolution of 1868. Flight of the Queen. Constitution of 1869. Religious toleration. Candidates for the vacant throne. Election of Amadeo of Italy. Unfriendliness of the nation to him. His abdication.

"In January, 1866, occurred an insurrection headed by General Prim, a leading officer of the army, which, failing, caused his temporary exile. In June there originated in the barrack of San Gil, a few hundred yards from the palace, a more serious revolt, which extended over a great part of Madrid. In October of the same year the Ministry, in a public proclamation, alleged as a justification for an autocratic exercise of power, that 'revolutionary tendencies constituted an imposing organism with dangerous pretensions; that a rebellion adverse to the fundamental institutions of the country and the dynasty of Isabella, such as had never been seen in Spain, had obtained possession of important municipalities, and triumphed in the deputations from all the provinces,' and that it was necessary to dissolve the municipalities and renew the provisional deputations. … By this arbitrary assumption Spain was under as complete a despotism as existed in the neighboring empire of Morocco. The dissatisfaction at such maladministration, such abuses in the government, and the thinly disguised immoralities of the Queen, soon found expression in audible murmurs and severe criticism. These verbal protests were followed by machinations for the overthrow or control of a sovereign subject to ambitious priests and a venal coterie. Two exiles, Marshal Serrano and Marshal Prim, united with Admiral Topete at Cadiz, and began a revolution which soon had the sympathy and co-operation of a large part of the army and the navy. A provisional revolutionary junta of forty-one persons—a few others, notably Sagasta and Martos, were afterwards added —was appointed, which signed decrees and orders having the force and effect of laws. In less than a month Francisco Serrano was authorized by the junta to form a temporary ministry to rule the country until the Cortes should meet. The defeat of the royal troops near Alcolea prevented the return of Isabella to Madrid, and on September 30, 1868, she fled across the border into France. … With the flight of the Queen vanished for a time the parliamentary monarchy, and, despite her impotent proclamations from France, and offers of amnesty, a provisional government was at once established. A decree of the Government to take inventories of 'all the libraries, collections of manuscripts, works of art, or objects of historical value—a measure necessary to make useful and available these treasures, and to prevent spoliation and transfer —was peacefully executed except at Burgos. Here, under instigation of the priests and aided by them, a mob assembled, broke down the doors of the cathedral, assassinated the Governor, wounded the chief of police, and expelled those engaged in making the required examination and inventory. This outbreak, attributed to a clerical and Carlist conspiracy, awakened opposition and horror. A strong pressure was created for the immediate establishment of freedom of worship. {3016} The atrocious butchery at Burgos aroused the inhabitants of the capital. The Nuncio was so imperilled by the excited populace that the diplomatic corps interposed for the safety and protection of their colleague. Marshal Serrano quieted the angry multitude gathered at his residence by saying that the Government had prepared the project of a constitution to be submitted to the Constitutional Assembly, one of whose first articles was liberty of worship. On February 12, 1869, the Constitutional Cortes convoked by the Provisional Government, assembled with unusual pomp and ceremony and with striking demonstrations of popular enthusiasm. … The Republicans, among whom the eloquent Castelar was influential, were a compact phalanx, and to them the independent Progresistas, led by General Prim, made overtures which were accepted. On Sunday June 5, 1869, the Constitution was promulgated. … While recognizing the provinces and endowing them with important functions, the Cortes rejected the plan of a federal republic, and adhered to the monarchical form of government as corresponding with and a concession to Spanish traditions, and as most likely to secure a larger measure of the liberal principles of the revolution. The Constitution, the legitimate outgrowth of that popular uprising, recognized the natural and inherent rights of man, and established an elective monarchy. … Congress was chosen by universal suffrage. The provincial assemblies and the municipal authorities were elected by the people of their respective localities. The ancient privileges of the aristocracy were annulled, and the equality of all men before the law was recognized. … The Clerical party claimed the continued maintenance of the Roman Catholic Church and the exclusion of all other worship, but the country had outgrown such intolerance. … The Catholic form of faith was retained in the organic law as the religion of the State, but a larger liberty of worship was secured to the people. In Article XXI. the Catholic Apostolic Roman religion was declared the State religion, and the obligation to maintain its worship and ministers was imposed. Foreigners were granted toleration for public and private worship under the limitations of the universal rules of morals and right, and Spaniards, even, professing another than the Catholic religion were to have the like toleration. … Spain quietly passed from the anomalous condition of a provisional into a regular constitutional government, the title of Provisional Government having been changed to that of Executive Power. In June a regency was established, and Serrano was chosen by a vote of 193 to 45. From June 16, 1869, the date of Prim's first cabinet, until December 27, 1870, when he was shot [as he rode through the street, by assassins, who escaped], he had four separate ministries besides several changes of individual ministers; and this instability is characteristic of Spanish politics. … For the vacant throne some Spaniards turned to the Duke of Montpensier; some to the Court of Portugal, and in default thereof to the house of Savoy. … At the moment of greatest embarrassment, the candidature of Leopold, Prince of Hohenzollern, was proposed [—a proposal which led to the Franco-German war: see FRANCE: A. D. 1870 (JUNE-JULY)]. … Leopold's declension was a welcome relief. His candidacy being removed, the strife for the throne became fiercer. On November 3, 1870, General Prim announced to the Cortes the Duke of Aosta, son of Victor Emmanuel, as the Ministerial candidate for the crown. Castelar impetuously denounced the attempt to put a foreigner over Spaniards. On the 15th, Amadeo was elected king, receiving on a vote by ballot a majority of seventy-one of those present and a majority of eighteen in a full house. … The choice excited no enthusiasm, elicited no applause, nor was a viva given by the multitude outside the building where the Cortes had made a sovereign. Thirty thousand troops, discreetly posted in principal thoroughfares, prevented any hostile demonstration, and the leading Republicans, Figueras, Castelar, and Piyy Margall, advised against any acts of violence. Many journals condemned the Cortes. Grandees, protested, placards caricatured and ridiculed. … Nevertheless, Zorrilla went to Italy to make the formal tender of the crown, and on January 2, 1871, the prince reached Madrid and took the prescribed oaths of office in the presence of the regent, the Cortes, and the diplomatic corps. The ceremony was brief and simple. The reception by the populace was respectful and cold. The Provisional Government resigned, and a new ministry was appointed, embracing such men as, Serrano, Martos, Moret, Sagasta, and Zorrilla. … Amadeo never had the friendship of the Carlists nor of the simon-pure Monarchists. The dynasty was offensive to the adherents of Don Carlos and of Alfonso, and to the Republicans, who were opposed to any king. … Becoming [after two years] convinced that the Opposition was irreconcilable, that factions were inevitable, that a stable ministry was impossible, Amadeo, resolved on the singular course of abdicating the royal authority, and returning to the nation the powers with which he had been intrusted;" and this abdication he performed on the 11th of February, 1873.

_J. L. M. Curry, Constitutional Government in Spain, chapters 3-4._

ALSO IN: _J. A. Harrison, Spain, chapters 27-28._

SPAIN: A. D. 1873-1885. Reign of Alphonso XII., son of Queen Isabella.

On the abdication of King Amadeo, "a republic was declared by the Cortes, and the gifted and eminent statesman, Castelar, strove to give it a constitutional and conservative character. But during the disorders of the last few years the Basque provinces of Navarre and Biscay had been in a ferment excited by the Carlists. The grandson of the Don Carlos who had troubled Spain from 1833 to 1839 appeared in those provinces which were still favourable to his cause, and this ardent young champion of divine right of course received the support of French legitimists. On the other hand, the doctrines of the Paris Commune had found in the south of Spain many adherents, who desired that their country should form a federation of provincial republics. Malaga, Seville, Cadiz, Cartagena, and Valencia revolted, and were reduced only after sharp fighting. A group of generals then determined to offer the crown to Alphonso, the young son of Isabella II, in whose favour she had abdicated in 1868. Castelar, the moderate republican statesman, reluctantly consented, and young Alphonso XII, on landing in Spain, 1874, received the support of most republicans and Carlists, disgusted by the excesses of their extreme partisans. {3017} His generals gradually hemmed in the Carlists along the north coast by battles near Bilbao and Irun; and when the rebels shot a German subject Prince Bismarck sent German ships to aid the Alphonsists. These in the spring of 1876 forced Don Carlos and most of his supporters to cross the French frontier. The Madrid Government now determined to put an end to the fueros or local privileges of the Basque provinces, which they had misused in openly preparing this revolt. So Biscay and Navarre henceforth contributed to the general war expenses of Spain, and their conscripts were incorporated with the regular army of Spain. Thus the last municipal and provincial privileges of the old Kingdom of Navarre vanished, and national unity became more complete in Spain, as in every other country of Europe except Austria and Turkey. The Basque provinces resisted the change which placed them on a level with the rest of Spain, and have not yet become reconciled to the Madrid Government. The young King, Alphonso XII, had many other difficulties to meet. The government was disorganised, the treasury empty, and the country nearly ruined; but he had a trusty adviser in Canovas del Castillo, a man of great prudence and talent, who, whether prime minister or out of office, has really held power in his hands. He succeeded in unifying the public debt, and by lowering its rate of interest he averted State bankruptcy. He also strove to free the administration from the habits of bribe-taking which had long enfeebled and disgraced it; but in this he met with less success, as also in striving for purity of parliamentary election. … The Senate is composed of (1) nobles, (2) deputies elected by the corporations and wealthy classes, and (3) of life senators appointed by the crown. The Chamber of Deputies is elected by universal suffrage, one deputy for every 50,000 inhabitants. The king or either House of Parliament has the right of proposing laws. In 1883 King Alphonso paid a visit to Berlin, and was made honorary colonel of a Uhlan regiment. For this he was hooted and threatened by the Parisians on his visit to the French capital; and this reception increased the coldness of Spain toward the French, who had aggrieved their southern neighbour by designs on Morocco. The good understanding between Spain and Germany was over-clouded by a dispute about the Caroline Islands in the Pacific, which Spain rightly regarded as her own. This aggravated an illness of Alphonso, who died suddenly (November 25, 1885). His young widow, as queen-regent for her infant child, has hitherto [1889] succeeded with marvellous tact."

_J. H. Rose, A Century of Continental History, chapter 43._

SPAIN: A. D. 1885-1894. Alphonso XIII.

At the time of this writing (November, 1894), the queen-regent, Maria Christina, is still reigning in the name of her young son, Alphonso XIII.

SPAIN: End--------

SPALATO.

See SALONA, ANCIENT.

SPANISH AMERICA: Start--------

SPANISH AMERICA: A. D. 1492-1517. Discoveries and early settlements.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1492, to 1513-1517.

SPANISH AMERICA: A. D. 1517-1524. Discovery and conquest of Mexico.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1517-1518; and MEXICO: 1519, to 1521-1524.

SPANISH AMERICA: A. D. 1527-1533. Discovery and conquest or Peru.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1524-1528; and PERU: A. D. 1528-1531, and 1531-1533.

SPANISH AMERICA: A. D. 1533. Conquest of the kingdom of Quito.

See ECUADOR.

SPANISH AMERICA: A. D. 1535-1550. Spanish conquests in Chile.

See CHILE: A. D. 1450-1724.

SPANISH AMERICA: A. D. 1536-1538. Conquest of New Granada.

See COLOMBIAN STATES: A. D. 1536-1731.

SPANISH AMERICA: A. D. 1542-1568. Establishment of the audiencias of Quito, Charcas, New Granada, and Chile, under the viceroyalty of Peru.

See AUDIENCIAS.