Carlos Maria Isidro de Bourbon

Carlos María Isidro de Borbón also known as Don Carlos (Aranjuez, March 29, 1788-Trieste, March 10, 1855) was an infant of Spain and the first Carlist pretender to the throne under the name of Carlos V for being the second son of King Carlos IV and María Luisa de Parma and, therefore, brother of the successor King Fernando VII, whose daughter Isabel II disputed the throne. Throughout his life he used the incognito titles of Duke of Elizondo and Count of Molina.

Biography

Early Years

Carlos was born on March 29, 1788 in the Royal Palace of Aranjuez. His godfather was his grandfather, King Carlos III. Between 1808 and 1814 he lived as a prisoner of Napoleon in Valençay with his brothers. In 1814 he returned with the rest of the royal family to Madrid. In September 1816, he married his niece, the Infanta of Portugal, María Francisca of Portugal (or Braganza), daughter of King John VI of Portugal and Carlota Joaquina de Borbón, his sister. In his second marriage he married María Teresa of Braganza, princess of Beira, sister of his first wife and with whom he had no offspring.

Pragmatic Sanction

In May 1830, Ferdinand VII published the Pragmatic Sanction, which repealed the Salic Law and allowed women accession to the Spanish throne in the absence of male heirs. The decree had originally been approved in 1789, but was never officially promulgated. Until then, Carlos had been the heir to his brother.

On October 10, 1830, María Cristina de Borbón, Ferdinand VII's fourth wife, gave him a daughter, who was named Isabel and displaced her uncle from the line of succession. Certain groups continued to support Carlos's rights to the throne, considering the Pragmática illegal, and intrigued on Carlos' behalf.

Although in 1830 Carlos admitted the Pragmatic Sanction, he retracted it in 1833, for which reason he received the order in March to leave Spain and establish his residence in the Papal States. The port of shipment had been set at Cádiz, but due to the cholera epidemic that was ravaging the city, he was allowed to do so in Lisbon. Back in Portugal, supported by his family ties to the reigning dynasty, he repeatedly delayed his departure, refused to return to Madrid to swear allegiance to Isabel as successor, and did not agree to do so before Ambassador Luis Fernández de Córdoba (April 1833). Fernando VII ended up confiscating his property, and sent him a frigate with the order that the captain deliver 400,000 reales to Carlos once the ship had set sail. But he not only refused to embark again, but also communicated to the main European governments his decision not to renounce the throne of Spain. He was always highly supported in these events by Joaquín Abarca, Bishop of León, exiled in Portugal.

First Carlist War

Casa de Carlos María Isidro in Durango in 1837. Isidoro Magués drawing.

When Ferdinand VII died on September 29, 1833, Carlos issued the Abrantes Manifesto on October 1, in which he declared his ascension to the throne under the name of Carlos V. On October 6, General Santos Ladrón de Cegama proclaimed Carlos as King of Spain in the town of Tricio (La Rioja), the date on which the First Carlist War began.

"Carlos V to his vassal loved ones: Well-known are my rights to the Crown of Spain throughout Europe and the feelings in this part of the Spaniards, which are made known to stop me to justify them. Faithful, submissive and obedient as the last of the vassals to my expensive brother who has just died, and whose loss, both for himself and for his circumstances, has penetrated my heart with pain, all I have sacrificed: my tranquility, that of my family; I have wrought all kinds of dangers to testify to him my respectful obedience, giving at the same time this public testimony of my religious and social principles. Perhaps some have believed that I have led them to excess, but I have never believed that there may be at a point where the peace of the monarchies depends. Now I am your king; and in presenting myself to you for the first time under this title, I cannot doubt a single moment that you will imitate my example of the obedience that is due to the princes who legitimately occupy the throne and you will all fly to place you under my banners, thus making you creditors to my affection and sovereign munificence. But you also know that the weight of justice will fall on those who, disobedient and disloyal, do not want to hear the voice of a sovereign and a father who only wants to make them happy."

October 1833. Don Carlos

Coin of eight maravedis coined in Segovia with the effigy of Carlos María Isidro.

After the defeat of Miguelismo in the Portuguese civil war and harassed by the troops of Isabel II who, under the command of the General Commander of Extremadura José Ramón Rodil y Campillo, had penetrated Portugal, Carlos was evacuated by sea on the warship British HMS Donegal, in the face of Spanish protests, arriving in Britain on June 18, 1834. In July he fled the island, passing through France incognito—the alleged complicity of the British and French governments in the escape has yet to be clarified—, entering Spain through the Navarra border on July 9. He remained in Navarre and in the Basque Provinces during the First Carlist War until 1839, maintaining a traveling court in Oñate, Estella, Tolosa, Azpeitia and Durango, and accompanied his army, but without showing military skills. In October 1834, a decree deprived him of his rights as infant of Spain, a fact that was confirmed by the Cortes in 1847.

A religious man with simple customs, he was very well received by the rural population of those lands. Adolfo Loning says that he was unsympathetic, without a kind word or look for the soldiers. Lassala claims that he was never seen on the battlefield. In 1835, while the disorderly Carlist retreat began in the countryside after the battle of Mendigorría, he was eating in the town and was about to be arrested.

Don Carlos drawn by Isidoro Magués in 1837.

In the summer of 1837, he organized the so-called Royal Expedition, in which, at the head of a large part of his Basque, Castilian and Navarrese battalions, he marched through Catalonia and the Maestrazgo to the gates of Madrid, apparently following false news about a possible marriage between one of his children with Isabel II. His expectations were not met and already in retreat, harassed by Baldomero Espartero, he returned with his troops to Vizcaya. Faced with the frustration produced by his failed attempt to solve the succession problem, as well as by the disastrous withdrawal, he took drastic measures on the commanders of his army and his administration: officers and civilians who had served him since the time of Zumalacárregui were dispossessed of the command, imprisoned, tried, even killed. His court ended up being made up of incompetent and initiative advisers, among whom Bishop Abarca was the most influential. They were called "ojalateros", since it was said that they did nothing but complain about what happened during the Royal Expedition, with phrases that always began with "Ojalá...".

The pessimistic attitude of the Court of Carlos in the face of civil and military problems caused great discontent, both among the commanders and among the troops, and mutual mistrust also increased among the battalions of the three Basque and Navarrese provinces —which they refused to fight outside the geographical scope of their provinces—as well as with the Castilian battalions. In October 1837, after the death of his first wife, he married his niece María Teresa and, in June 1838, he appointed Rafael Maroto Commander-in-Chief, who dedicated himself to reorganizing the army, but facing few war actions. In February 1839, he ordered three generals to be shot, on suspicion that they had been organizing a plot against him, and demanded that Carlos remove all his adversaries. Given this, Carlos dismissed him on February 21 and declared him a traitor, although on February 25 he reconsidered his position and agreed to his requests. Maroto began secret negotiations with the Elizabethans that concluded in 1839 with the signing of the Oñate Agreement, also called the embrace of Vergara. His file, confiscated by Espartero and deposited in 1839 in the library of the bishopric of Calahorra, is missing.

Exile, abdication and death

Daguerrotype of Carlos María Isidro (1853) - ARCHIVO del MARQUÉS DE LA REAL DEFENS

On September 14, 1839, he crossed the French border and the French government decided to settle him in Bourges with his wife and children. There, on May 18, 1845, he abdicated in his son Carlos Luis (who adopted the title of Carlos VI), with the intention that he marry his cousin Isabel II.

After his abdication he used the incognito title of Count of Molina and on March 10, 1855 he died in Trieste, then part of the Austrian Empire. He is buried together with his descendants in the chapel of Saint Charles Borromeo in the Cathedral of Saint Justus in Trieste.

Married couples and children

Tomb of Carlos María Isidro in the Cathedral of Trieste.

In his first nuptials, he married his niece María Francisca de Braganza. With her he had three children:

• Carlos Luis de Borbón y Braganza, Count of Montemolín (1818-1861);
• Juan Carlos de Borbón y Braganza, Conde de Montizan (1822-1887);
• Fernando de Borbón y Braganza (1824-1861).

In 1838, the widowed Don Carlos married for the second time his niece and sister-in-law María Teresa de Braganza, princess of Beira, niece and widow of his cousin Pedro Carlos de Borbón. From this second marriage there were no descendants.

Thought

Don Carlos was a person of deep Catholic convictions and an orderly life who, according to Alexandra Wilhelmsen, had a great sense of duty. He had never conspired against his father or his brother, nor had he stood out in Spanish public life before the publication of the Pragmática Sanción . Some Englishmen who met him later during the war compared him to the typical English gentleman.

The claim of the rights to the crown meant exile for Carlos María Isidro, the confiscation of his assets, persecution abroad, the separation of his family and the physical hardships of the war in the mountains of the north of Spain. It was during this war that his cabal expressed many of the basic tenets of his followers, though the pretender said only the bare minimum. In his decrees, proclamations, manifestos and part of his correspondence, the legitimacy of government, the validity of fundamental laws and regional diversity stand out as predominant ideas, religion being interwoven in each of them.

Orders and Jobs

Orders

Kingdom of Spain

• Knight of the Order of the Golden Toy.
• Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Charles III.
• Knight Grand Cross of the Spanish and American Order of Isabel the Catholic.
• Order of Santiago
  • Senior Leon dealer.
  • Gentlemen.
• Order of Calatrava
  • Senior dealer.
  • Major dealer of Aragón or Alcañiz.

• Order of Alcántara
  • Claver.
• Big Knight of the Order of San Fernando.

Foreign

• 1814: Knight of the Order of the Holy Spirit (Kingdom of France).
• 1814: Knight of the Order of Saint Michael (Reino de France).
• Knight of the Order of San Jenaro.
• Big Knight of the Royal Order of San Fernando del Mérito.
• 1819: Knight of the Order of the Crown of Ruda.

Ancestors