Reign of Ferdinand VII of Spain

format_list_bulleted Contenido keyboard_arrow_down

ImprimirCitar

The reign of Ferdinand VII is the twenty-five-year period in contemporary Spanish history between 1808 and 1833. Ferdinand VII of Spain ascended the throne on March 19, 1808, immediately after the abdication of his father, Carlos IV, after the Mutiny of Aranjuez; and his reign ended with his death on September 29, 1833.

Ferdinand VII, nominal king from Aranjuez, captive since the Bayonne abdications in 1808, however he is recognized as the legitimate monarch of Spain during the War of Independence by the Government Juntas, the Regency and the Spanish Courts and also by American Boards. From July 25, 1808, the date of the proclamation of José I Bonaparte, until the return of the captive Ferdinand VII, there was therefore no effective king in Spain. After the final defeat of José I Bonaparte, who left Madrid on 27 On May 1813, Napoleon recognized Ferdinand VII as King of Spain through the Treaty of Valençay. The already free captive king entered Spain on March 22, 1814 through Figueras, and now as effective king, he promised to restore the traditional courts and rule without despotism. Fernando receives the general support of the population and the support of 69 deputies of the Cortes, through the so-called Manifesto of the Persians, which is presented to the king on April 16 in Valencia, and with this support heads the coup d'état of May 1814 and he proclaimed himself absolute king, decreed illegal the Cortes of Cádiz, and all his work, as well as all the rebel Juntas that had arisen in America. In the following years, after a succession of liberal pronouncements in the Iberian Peninsula, finally in 1820, the uprising of the Overseas army was provoked by Rafael Riego and Antonio Quiroga, which led to the reinstatement of the Cortes during the Liberal Triennium. The royalist reaction and the invasion of a French army take place in 1823 (the One Hundred Thousand Sons of Saint Louis ) which restores Ferdinand VII to the absolute throne, until his death in 1833.

The reign of Ferdinand VII after recovering his rights to the throne after the signing of the Treaty of Valençay is conventionally divided into three periods: the Absolutist Six-year period, the Liberal Triennium and the Ominous Decade.

The short-lived first reign (March-May 1808)

Main articles: Aranjuez riot and Bayonne Abdictions.

See also: Spain during the Spanish Independence War

Fernando VII's allegorical portrait carried out by Vicente Capilla in 1810, when two years ago that in Bayona, pressured by Napoleon, had yielded to this his rights to the Spanish Crown. But Bayona's abdications were not recognized by the Spanish "patriots" who continued to consider Fernando VII as their king (confined at Valençay Castle in the custody of Napoleon).

On March 19, 1808, Charles IV abdicated in favor of his son Fernando, Prince of Asturias, as a result of the pressure he was subjected to during the mutiny in Aranjuez instigated by the aristocratic or Fernandino party and that caused the fall of the "favorite" Manuel Godoy. The French Emperor Napoleon, whose troops were entering Spain to invade Portugal under the Treaty of Fontainebleau but whose intent to subdue the Spanish monarchy was becoming increasingly apparent—Marshal Joaquim Murat's troops had entered Madrid on March 23—, decided to intervene in the Spanish dynastic crisis and managed to get Carlos IV and his son, proclaimed as Ferdinand VII, together with the rest of the members of the royal family, to go to Bayonne. Ferdinand VII arrived on April 20 and on 30 Carlos IV and his wife, Maria Luisa of Parma. Precisely the news of the departure of the rest of the royal family to Bayonne caused an anti-French uprising in Madrid on May 2, which would be seconded in many other places where Juntas that assumed power were formed, thus beginning what would be known as the War of Independence.

In Bayonne Carlos IV and Ferdinand VII, under pressure and threats, ceded their rights to the Spanish Crown to Napoleon, who in turn ceded them a month later to his brother José Bonaparte. Ferdinand VII, his brother don Carlos and his uncle Don Antonio were confined in the "Château" of Valençay. From there Ferdinand VII would show "the satisfaction of seeing Joseph I Bonaparte installed" on the throne of Spain, "pledging the loyalty that I owe to the King of Spain", and he would write very affectionate letters to Napoleon congratulating him on his victories in Spain and expressing his desire to become "his adopted son".

For his part, Charles IV, his wife María Luisa de Parma and their young son Francisco de Paula de Borbón were taken from Bayonne to the Palace of Compiègne and later they would go to Marseille and finally to Rome (Charles IV would die there in 1819)..

The “absent king” and the Cortes of Cádiz

Main articles: Spanish Independence War and Courts of Cadiz.

The abdications of Bayonne were not recognized by the Juntas and they swore their allegiance to Ferdinand VII while a minority ―the «Afrancesados»― supported José I, who settled in the Royal Palace of Madrid, after having approved the Statute of Bayonne that would govern the «Josephine monarchy». The "patriot" Juntas, for their part, constituted a Central Supreme Junta that was later replaced by a Regency that assumed the functions of the "absent king" Ferdinand VII. Cortes were convened, which met in Cádiz, before the advance of the French troops, and on September 24, 1810, the same day that their sessions began, they agreed that they "recognise, proclaim and swear again by their only and legitimate King to Mr. D. Fernando VII de Borbón and declare null, of no value or effect the transfer of the crown that is said to have been made in favor of Napoleon, not only because of the violence that intervened in those unjust and illegal acts, but mainly because he lacked the consent of the Nation", and then they proclaimed that "national sovereignty" resided in them.

Based on the declaration of September 24, 1810, the Cortes of Cádiz drew up and approved a Constitution ―with the opposition of the "servile" deputies, which was what the "liberals" called the defenders of the absolute monarchy― that it was promulgated on March 19, 1812 —which it reaffirmed in its article 179: «The King of Spain is Mr. D. Fernando VII de Borbón, who currently reigns». Thus, a constitutional monarchy was established and, together with the decrees approved by the Cortes, the Old Regime was put to an end. With the Cortes of Cádiz began "the long cycle of the Spanish liberal Revolution".

The government juntas exercised their own sovereignty in the name of the absent Ferdinand VII, both in the Iberian Peninsula and in the American territories. In Spain, after the disorderly experience of the Juntas of 1808, the model of the majority of the peninsular deputies, the unitary monarchy, prevailed against the federalist model of the American deputies. The American juntas refused to submit to the governments formed in Spain. Then they were declared in default, and the conflict between the Spanish government and the Americans began. In Spain, the Cádiz Replacement Commission was set up to mount military expeditions and the first declarations of independence appeared in America.

The absolutist six-year term

Liberal Triennium

Main article: Liberal Triennium

The restoration of the Constitution of Cádiz

Main article: Pronunciamiento de Riego

Lieutenant Colonel Rafael del Riego, then promoted to general, who led the pronouncement that bears his name and ended the absolutist sexenium.

After the triumph of the Spanish Revolution of 1820, Fernando VII said in a royal decree promulgated on March 7: «being the will of the people, I have decided to swear to the Constitution promulgated by the general and extraordinary Cortes in the year 1812". As Emilio La Parra López has highlighted, "that Constitution and those Cortes that on May 4, 1814 had ordered the king to remove from the midst of time returned". "The second liberal experience of Spain began", Alberto Gil Novales has pointed out. Two days later the king swore the Constitution for the first time in the Royal Palace (the formal oath would take place in July before the newly elected Cortes, according to the formula established in the Constitution), abolished the Inquisition and appointed a Provisional Board chaired by Cardinal Borbón, Archbishop of Toledo and his cousin, who already headed the constitutional regency in 1814.

On March 10, the king published a manifesto in which he announced that he had sworn to the Constitution, of which he would be "always his strongest support." The manifesto ended with a paragraph that would become famous (because Ferdinand VII broke the promise that appeared in it and "almost the day after taking the oath to the Constitution he began to act to overthrow it"):

Let us march frankly, and I the first, on the constitutional path; and showing Europe a model of wisdom, order and perfect moderation in a crisis that in other Nations has been accompanied by tears and misfortunes, let us admire and reverence the Spanish name, at the same time that we wash for centuries our happiness and our glory.

Fernando VII appointed a government made up of moderate liberals, some of whom took a long time to be able to occupy their positions because they had to travel from the prisons or from the places of exile where they had spent a good part of the absolutist six-year term. That is why the king called it, privately and in a tone between sarcastic and contemptuous, the "government of convicts". Most of them had already participated in the Cortes of Cádiz that approved the Constitution of 1812, for which reason they also they will be known as doceañistas. The most prominent members of this first government of the Triennium were Agustín Argüelles, who held the Secretary of State and the Office of the Interior of the Peninsula and adjacent islands, and José Canga Argüelles, that of the Treasury.

After the elections were held (by indirect male universal suffrage, in three degrees: parish, party and provincial meetings), the Cortes were constituted whose opening session was held on July 9, 1820 and during which the king solemnly swore to the Constitution.

The Liberal Divide: "Moderates" vs. "Hotheads"

The moderate liberal "anillero" Francisco Martínez de la Rosa, leader of the third government of Trienio.

In the first months of the new constitutional regime, there was a division between the liberals who supported it: the moderates, representatives of the most conservative wing of Spanish liberalism, and the “exalted ones”, representatives of the most progressive wing. The two groups shared the same political project, initiated by the Cortes of Cádiz, to put an end to the absolute monarchy and the Old Regime and replace them with a new liberal regime, both politically and economically. In what they differed was in the "strategy" to follow to achieve that common objective. The moderates (also called "twelve years" because their most prominent members had already been deputies in the Cortes of Cádiz) considered that the " revolution" was already finished and that what had to be guaranteed was "order" and "stability", trying to integrate into it the old ruling classes, such as the nobility (through compromises with them); the exalted, on the contrary, thought that the "revolution" had to continue developing with measures that sought the support of the popular classes.

However, they also differed in terms of the Constitution of 1812 itself, which the moderates wanted to reform in a conservative sense and the exalted to maintain it as it had been approved by the Cortes of Cádiz. The moderates, especially its most conservative sector made up of the so-called "anilleros" headed by Francisco Martínez de la Rosa, wanted to introduce census suffrage, that is, that only men who had a certain level of income had the right to vote. (instead of the indirect universal suffrage in three degrees of the Constitution), and a second chamber, in which the territorial aristocracy was represented, as a counterweight to the Congress of Deputies. They also wanted less limitation of the king's power for that way to give the executive more capacity to act.

Álvaro Flórez Estrada, an outstanding member of the exalted, defended patriotic societies in the debate that took place in the Courts on the proposal of the moderates to ban them.

The definitive rupture between moderates and exalted ones took place in October 1820, due to the debate in the Cortes on the proposal to prohibit patriotic societies. Since the summer of 1820, the Moderates had begun to see patriotic societies "more as a danger to public order than as an ally in the defense of constitutional order", which was how exalted ones saw them, and also as "a kind of illegitimate counterpower that exalted used to counteract their low representation in parliament" —incompatible, therefore, with the constitutional channels of representation. Finally, the "moderates" they managed to get the Cortes, where they had the majority, to approve a decree promulgated on October 21, 1820 that prohibited patriotic societies as they had functioned up to that moment. They were allowed to continue acting without establishing themselves as such —such as gatherings or patriotic meetings — and under the local higher authority that could suspend them at any time.

Another reason for confrontation between moderates and exalted was the National Militia, which the latter wanted to turn into a revolutionary instrument ("the armed Fatherland") and the former into a guarantor of public order and constitutional order (understood as synonyms). The key question was which social classes could access the militia. The moderates restricted it to "property citizens" (and the barrier was that its members had to pay for the uniform), while the exalted ones set out to broaden their social base by making access possible for the urban popular classes, for which they devised various formulas (subsidies, subscriptions, patronage, etc.) to pay for uniforms to those who could not afford them.

The conflict between moderates and exalted became more acute at the end of 1821 when the mobilizations of exalted liberals protested the removal on September 4 of General Rafael del Riego, the hero of the Revolution of 1820, from the position of captain general of Aragón became a broad movement of civil disobedience that developed in many cities, with Cádiz and Seville as centers. In all cases, obedience to the central government was denied ―the second of the Triennium appointed by the king in March 1821, with Eusebio Bardají at the head of the Secretariat of the Office of State― and the civil and military authorities designated by him. The result was, on the one hand, that on February 28, 1822, King Ferdinand VII appointed the third liberal government, which would be known as that of the "rings" because all its members belonged to the very conservative Society of the Ring, and whose strong man was Francisco Martínez de la Rosa, who held the Secretary of the Office of State. And on the other hand, that the new Cortes that emerged from the second elections of the Triennium count with an exalted majority. The king's inaugural speech was answered by Rafael del Riego, who held the presidency of the Cortes after being elected deputy for Asturias. "The scene was tense. The hero of Las Cabezas de San Juan in front of the monarch of absolutist vocation, face to face, with the full chamber as witness. The president's response was brief but did not disappoint." Riego referred to the "difficult circumstances that surround us" and the "repeated machinations of the enemies of liberty" and ended by saying that "the power and greatness of a monarch consists solely of in exact compliance with the laws."

The abolition of the Old Regime: separation and confiscation

Picota de Torija (Guadalajara Province). The use of this instrument and symbol of the vassal was abolished by the Provisional Advisory Board.

The Provisional Consultative Board, appointed by Fernando VII on March 9, 1820 ―the same day that he had sworn to the Constitution for the first time―, had already approved some decrees leading to the dismantling of the Old Regime and the Cortes continued with that work. The first important measure that they approved was the disassociation of assets by suppressing by means of a decree published on September 27, 1820 «all the mayorazgos, trusts, patronages and any other kind of ties of real estate, furniture, livestock, censuses, juros, forums or of any other nature, which are now restored to the class of absolutely free" (a matter that had not been addressed by the Cortes of Cádiz).

Nobody's seen us.. Recorded number 79 of Francisco de Goya's series Los Caprichos (1799). In it appear four friars drinking. It responds to the criticism that the illustrators made to the regular clergy (which the liberals shared). "The Goyesco friar is frightening, laughable, chabacan, palurdo", said Julio Caro Baroja.

The following month, the Cortes approved on October 25 the reform of the regular clergy —whose main objective was to reduce their excessive number— which included the suppression of monastic orders and military orders and the elimination of many convents of the mendicant orders—by 1822 nearly half of the Spanish convents had been closed. The decree also established that there could not be more than one convent of the same order for each population. they were "disentailed" (they passed to the State and were sold at public auction). Nothing was done to facilitate the peasants' access to ownership of these assets, which were mostly bought by the richest owners. And the situation of many peasants even worsened when the new owners demanded an increase in the rent paid by those who had leased the plots (by virtue of the "freedom of leases" decreed by the Cortes) or even evicted them from them, in virtue of the "property right" that they had acquired. The confiscation of the assets of the monastic orders and of an important part of those of the mendicant orders was one of the reasons, if not the main one, for which the majority of the clergy (especially the regular one, the one greatly affected by liberal politics) joined the camp of the counterrevolution, forming with a part of the peasantry "the great anti-liberal alliance" (whose maximum expression will be the royalist parties, which began to act above all from 1821).

The liberal governments and the Cortes also addressed the issue of the "tithe" but did not dare to abolish it completely ―which was what the peasants demanded―, as that would have left the Catholic Church in a difficult economic situation, instead they agreed to reduce it by half and demand payment of taxes to the State in cash. This demand for payment in cash is what explains the paradox that the halving of the tithe (decreed on June 29, 1821) not only did not alleviate the burdens of the peasants, but actually aggravated them. The liberal governments made an erroneous reasoning, because they thought that by reducing the tithe in half the peasants would accumulate more surpluses that they could sell in the market, and with the money obtained they would be able to pay the new State taxes (which on paper would be less than half of the tithe that they previously paid in kind), which would thus increase their income. no more money ―the increase in supply was immediately offset in these local markets [dominated by the speculation of large landowners] by falling prices―; when the tax collector arrived with new demands, they found themselves with nothing to pay and identified the new regime with greater fiscal oppression".

Regarding the lordships, the Cortes reestablished the decree of August 6, 1811 of the Cortes of Cádiz that abolished them, but they had to face the complex application of the same and for this they approved an “clarifying” law in June 1821. The key issue continued to be the presentation of the titles: if the lords could present the title of "concesion" of the manor and it was confirmed that it was not "jurisdictional" the manor became their property; otherwise the property reverted to the peasants. However, the "clarification" law was blocked by the king who returned it twice without signing (in use of the prerogative granted to him by the Constitution of 1812 to refuse to sanction a law up to two times) and when finally in May 1823 was "published as law" (the king could not deny the sanction a third time) it was too late because the invasion of the "One Hundred Thousand Sons of San Luis" that would put an end to the constitutional regime.

According to several historians, together with the confiscation of the assets of the suppressed convents, the failed abolition of the manors was another great missed opportunity to have added the peasantry to the cause of the Revolution, as happened in France.

The consolidation of independence in Latin America

Virtues and Spanish provinces in America around 1800:
Virreinato de Nueva España
Virreinato de Nueva Granada
Virreinate of Peru
Virreinato del Río de La Plata.

The war of emancipation in Spanish America had begun in 1809 and the conflict had already lasted ten years when on March 9, 1820 Fernando VII swore the Constitution. The outcome of the conflict remained uncertain until then, the Viceroyalty of New Spain and the Viceroyalty of Peru continued faithful to the monarchy but a part of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata had become independent, self-proclaimed as the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata, and another from the Viceroyalty of Nueva Granada, self-proclaimed Republic of Gran Colombia, under the presidency of Simón Bolívar.

In the metropolis, where the Spanish-American wars of independence and the situation in Spanish America in general were being followed with enormous expectation by both the Government and the Cortes as well as by public opinion, the idea had spread among the liberals that the proclamation of the Constitution of 1812 would put an end to the insurrections and the independence movements, putting an end to the war ―«the pacification of America is already more a work of politics than of force and... only the Constitution can restore the fraternal ties that united her with the mother country", said a statement from the Consultative Provisional Board. On March 31, 1820, a proclamation by King Ferdinand VII to the overseas inhabitants established the official position on the "American question" once the Constitution guaranteed their rights: that the insurgents lay down their arms and in exchange they would obtain royal pardon; Otherwise, the war would continue ("although without the cruelty and barbarity that until now, but in accordance with the law of nations", said the opinion of the Council of State). The Secretary of the Office of Overseas, Antonio Porcel ―"who was confident that the full execution of the Constitution would be enough to smooth out the inconveniences and calm the resentments that the Americans harbored with respect to the metropolis"― ordered the shipment to America of some " commissioners» with Instructions to procure the pacification of the territories. But the proposal was late because "the coup d'état of May 4, 1814 [which] came to restore absolutism and, with it, colonialism... meant for many Americans the collapse of a third way between absolutist colonialism and the insurgency, which represented the doceañista autonomist option.

Juan O'Donojú, political chief of New Spain appointed by the Government of Madrid, signed in August 1821 with Agustín Iturbide, leader of the Novo-Hispanic independenceists, the Treaty of Cordoba recognizing the independence of Mexico under the enthronement of a monarch of the Borbon family. The treaty was not recognized by Spain

Shortly after the second session of the Cortes began on March 1, 1821, the American deputies presented the proposal to establish a provincial council in each of the American municipalities, which was part of their strategy to deploy all the possibilities of autonomy that the Constitution offered to achieve greater self-government. »(which at that time was synonymous with «republicanism») such as that the superior political chief was not appointed by the Government but by the provincial councils or that they had the power to collect and manage all taxes. Everything changed when the In mid-May or early June 1821, he learned of the proclamation of the Plan of Iguala by Agustín de Iturbide in February, declaring the independence of New Spain (now Mexico).

On June 25, 1821, with only three days to go before the end of the second session, fifty-one American deputies led by those from New Spain, presented a proposal to structure the monarchy in the form of a federation. It consisted of creating three sections of the Cortes, the Government, the Supreme Court and the Council of State in Mexico, Santa Fe de Bogotá and Lima (the "sections" of all these institutions would have the same powers as the central ones, except foreign policy which would be reserved for the Cortes of Madrid). And at the head of each of the three executive powers there would be a prince of the Bourbon family, thus forming three American monarchies under the authority of Fernando VII. According to Pedro Rújula and Manuel Chust, "at the height of 1821 it was already a utopian proposal. The Americans knew it, the peninsular liberals too. Ferdinand VII would never accept it."

The Cortes rejected the proposal of the American deputies —mainly it was argued that in order to apply it the Constitution had to be reformed— and instead approved the one presented by the Count of Toreno that left the measures to be taken in the hands of the Government of the pacification of America. According to Ivana Frasquet, "the possible solution agreed to the independence of America through the establishment of infants, had been defeated. The king had triumphed... In his closing speech in the Cortes [on June 28], Ferdinand VII was forceful: the only alternative for America lay through the indissoluble unity of the monarchy».

Suppressed all military expeditions from Spain, in the summer of 1821 events in America precipitated. The commissioner sent to Santa Fe de Bogotá reported the defeat of the royalist troops suffered on June 24 in the Battle of Carabobo against the troops of Simón Bolívar. Later it was learned that on July 15 General José de San Martín had proclaimed the independence of Peru in Lima and that a month later, on August 24, 1821, Juan O'Donojú, political chief appointed by the Government of Madrid, and Agustín Iturbide, leader of the New Spain independentistas had signed the Treaty of Córdoba by which the independence of Mexico was recognized under the enthronement of a monarch of the Bourbon family. "Thus, in the summer of 1821, America was at war, from north to south". "The Spanish Parliament and the Spanish Government had lost a good opportunity", concludes Alberto Gil Novales.

The advance of the counterrevolution: the double game of Ferdinand VII and the failed coup d'état of July 1822

Equestrian portrait of Fernando VII by José de Madrazo (1821), Museo del Prado.

The "counterrevolution" began from the moment that Ferdinand VII swore the Constitution of 1812 for the first time on March 9, 1820, and the person who led it was the king himself. In reality, Ferdinand VII never came to accept the regime constitutional, although he never broke with it, and from the first moment he conspired to overthrow it. "Ferdinand VII was placed at the center of the actions against constitutionalism, not only because those involved in them took his name as their banner, along with religion, but also because the king personally and directly led the most relevant actions aimed at promoting regime change," said Emilio La Parra López.

Very soon the royalist parties began to act —the first of which there is news appeared in Galicia as early as April 1820—, organized by absolutists exiled in France and connected with the Royal Palace. The methods and way of operating the games were very similar to those used by the guerrillas during the "War of Independence" (Precisely some of those guerrillas will militate on the royalist side).

For his part, Ferdinand VII used his constitutional powers (the right to veto laws up to two times) to hinder, delay or, in some cases, prevent the promulgation of certain laws approved by the Cortes. It happened with the Monastic Law and the reform of regulars that the king refused to sanction citing conscience problems, although he finally ended up signing it after a great street agitation took place in Madrid. He also had frequent confrontations with members of the government. «You are the only defenders that the constitution gives me and you abandon me... You consent to those patriotic societies and other disorders, with which it is impossible to govern and, in a word, you leave me alone, being the only one who punctually follows the constitution", he told them on one occasion. Josep Fontana added: "He was lying, of course, since he was conspiring behind the back of his government, encouraging royalist parties, trying to create regencies abroad and begging the monarchs of the Holy Alliance to come to free him from such horrible captivity. The Ferdinand who protests his respect for the constitution is the same one who maintained a secret correspondence with Louis XVIII of France and with the Tsar of Russia ».

On the other hand, Fernando VII was implicated in the absolutist conspiracy headed by the priest Matías Vinuesa, the king's honorary chaplain, who was discovered in January 1821. When the sentence was made public on May 4th, Vinuesa was sentenced to ten years in prison by a supposed group of "exalted" liberals, who considered the sentence very benevolent — "a just and freedom-saving sentence was expected," comments Alberto Gil Novales -, they assaulted the prison where he was imprisoned and they murdered him with a hammer.

During the spring of 1822, the actions of the royalist parties increased notably (especially in Catalonia, Navarre, the Basque Country, Galicia, Aragon and Valencia) and there were several attempts at absolutist rebellions, the most important of which took place in Valencia on May 30, 1822, put down the following day ―on September 4, General Elío, who had already participated in the coup d'état of May 1814 and in whose name, and of the « absolute king", the artillerymen of the Citadel had revolted.

View of the Puerta del Sol in 1820. At the bottom the fountain and the church of the Good Success and to the right the Post Office.

Luis Carlos Legrand, Allegory of 7 JulyLithography. Registration: «Day 7 July eternal honor. From the Great Nation the Great Danger" (National Library of Spain).

At the beginning of 1822 there was an attempt to end the constitutional regime by force, following the same model as that of the failed conspiracy of the priest Matías Vinuesa the previous year. According to Juan Francisco Fuentes, "it was the most a serious absolutist coup d'état". "It marked a turning point in the course of the Triennium", have stressed Ángel Bahamonde and Jesús Martínez. he was "to leave with the insurgents to lead the counterrevolution." The king consulted with the government of Francisco Martínez de la Rosa, whose members spent most of their time in the Royal Palace as virtual prisoners (and there were orders prepared for their imprisonment), and the latter advised against it as too risky.

On July 1, four battalions of the Royal Guard left their barracks in the capital to concentrate in the nearby town of El Pardo, while the other two battalions guarded the Royal Palace. In the early morning of July 7 they launched themselves on Madrid. They were confronted in the Plaza de la Constitución by the National Militia, groups of civilians armed by the City Council and the Sacred Battalion, headed by General Evaristo San Miguel. The royal guards were forced to retreat towards the Puerta del Sol, where the most intense fighting took place, and then towards the Royal Palace, where they took refuge to flee. The action of the Royal Guard had not received any popular support The royal guards were pursued in their flight by the army and by militiamen. Very few would manage to join the royalist parties. After the failure of the coup, as Pedro Rújula has stressed, "the king acted as if he had nothing to do with what happened. He congratulated the forces of freedom, opened a case against the guard and expelled from his side the courtiers most identified with the conspiracy... The ministers who had remained hostages for six days were finally able to go home ».

The victory went to the militiamen and the volunteers who managed to defeat the royal guards. «July 7 became a heroic day for the memory of liberalism, through the construction of a story under the which the people of Madrid had defeated absolutism and saved the Constitution”, stated Álvaro París Martín.

As Juan Francisco Fuentes has highlighted, «the failure of the coup d'état of July 7, 1822 marks a before and after in the history of the Liberal Triennium: after that day power passed from the moderates to the exalted». Indeed, as the liberals "moderates" They were completely discredited by the ambiguous attitude that, at least the "rings", maintained during the absolutist coup. On August 5, the king was forced to name a cabinet made up of exalted liberals whose strong man was General Evaristo San Miguel, one of the heroes of July 7 and who had also participated in the pronouncement of Riego, who held the Secretariat of the State Office. Fuentes added: "But the change of cycle that the coup on July 7 brought about did not exhausted in this fact [that power passed from the moderates to the exalted]. The enemies of liberalism took good note of the inability of Spanish absolutism to overthrow the constitutional regime by its own means... This analysis of the failure of the coup meant that from then on almost all the pressure on the regime came from abroad, where the Spanish liberalism had old enemies".

The civil war of 1822-1823: the «Regency of Urgell»

Main article: Civil War of 1822-1823

The end of the revolution: the invasion of the "One Hundred Thousand Sons of Saint Louis"

Main article: One hundred thousand Sons of Saint Louis

The Congress of Verona convened by the Fourth Alliance, de facto Five Alliance since the incorporation of the Kingdom of France in 1818, and held between October 20 and December 14, 1822, was He dealt, among other issues, with "the dangers of the Spanish revolution in relation to Europe". French King Louis XVIII, the latter very interested in rebuilding the international prestige of Bourbon France. For his part, the Austrian Chancellor Metternich proposed that "Formal Notes" be sent to the Government of Madrid so that it moderated its positions and, in the event of not obtaining a satisfactory response, break diplomatic relations with the Spanish regime.

The king of France Louis XVIII, who decided, together with his government, to invade Spain to end the constitutional regime. Since it was discovered in 1935 that the "secret treatise of Verona" was a forgery, it was proved that the intervention in Spain was neither decided at the Verona Congress nor made on behalf of the Holy Covenant.

The diplomatic notes were delivered in Madrid at the end of 1821 or at the beginning of 1822 —the French note concluded with the threat of invasion in case "the noble Spanish nation does not find by itself a remedy for its evils, evils whose nature so unsettling to the governments of Europe that it forces them to take always painful precautions»— and were forcefully rejected by the strong man of the Spanish government, Evaristo San Miguel, Secretary of the Office of State, who received the full support of the Courts and public opinion (and also the king). "The Spanish nation will never recognize in any power the right to intervene or interfere in its business," replied San Miguel. The consequence was that the ambassadors of the "northern powers" (Austria, Prussia and Russia) left Madrid and a little later, on January 26, the French ambassador did so. Only the British ambassador remained in Madrid, whose government had not sent any note and had withdrawn from the Congress of Verona. "Spain remained isolated in the international context, pending only to know how the threat would materialize and what would be the position of England", pointed out Emilio La Parra López.

At the Verona Congress, finally, Austria, Prussia and Russia (Great Britain refused to join) pledged on November 19 to support France if it decided to attack Spain but «exclusively in three specific situations: 1) if Spain attacked France directly, or tried to do so with revolutionary propaganda; 2) if the King of Spain were dispossessed of the throne, or if his life or that of the other members of his family were in danger; and 3) if any change occurred that could affect the right of succession in the Spanish royal family". Despite the fact that none of these three situations materialized, France invaded Spain in April 1823 with the One Hundred Thousand Sons of Saint Louis. After it was discovered in 1935 that the supposed secret protocol signed by Russia, Prussia, Austria and France was a forgery, the myth was dismantled that the invasion of the Hundred Thousand Sons of Saint Luis had made up his mind at the Verona Congress and that it was being done in the name of the Holy Alliance. As the Spanish historian Rosario de la Torre has pointed out, who in 2011 once again insisted on the falsehood of the "Secret Treaty of Verona", the invasion of Spain was decided by the French King Louis XVIII and by his government (especially after that on December 28, 1822 François-René de Chateaubriand went on to direct foreign policy with the objective of "replace France in the category of military powers"), counting that with the more or less explicit approval or the neutrality of the other four powers of the Five Alliance. a political and military coup in the Court, nor through the armed uprising and its failed political cover in Urgell".

In his opening speech before the Chambers on January 28, 1823, Louis XVIII reported the failure of the diplomatic efforts with Spain, which he considered concluded —two days before the French ambassador had left Madrid; the Spanish ambassador in Paris will do the same after hearing the content of the speech—and then solemnly announced his decision to invade it —this statement gave rise to the name by which the French expeditionary force sent to Spain under the orders of the Duke of Angoulême was known: the One Hundred Thousand Sons of Saint Louis—:

I have given orders to withdraw my minister in that court and a hundred thousand French, sent by that prince of my family to whom my heart is pleased to give the name of my son, are soon to march, invoking the God of St.Louis, to preserve the throne of Spain a grandson of Henry IV [the founder of the Bourbon dynasty], and to preserve that beautiful kingdom of his ruin and to reconcile him with Europe.

"Planicie de Roncesvalles, 1823." Illustration showing the passage of the One hundred thousand Sons of Saint Louis for Roncesvalles.

On April 7, 1823, the “One Hundred Thousand Sons of Saint Louis” —the Armée d'Espagne was its official name— began to cross the Spanish border, without having previously declared the war. They were between 80,000 and 90,000 men, who at the end of the campaign would add up to 120,000, part of whom had already participated in the previous French invasion of 1808, under Napoleon. They had the support of royalist troops Spanish troops that had been organized in France before the invasion —between 12,500 and 35,000 men, according to various sources— These royalist troops were added as the parties that had survived the offensive of the constitutional army advanced. Various historians, such as Juan Francisco Fuentes, have highlighted the paradox that many of the members of the parties and the royalist support troops had fought fifteen years earlier against the French in the War of Independence.

The government led by Evaristo San Miguel organized the Spanish forces into four operational armies, although the only one that really faced the invaders was the second, the most numerous (20,000 men) and the best prepared, commanded by the General Francisco Espoz y Mina, former guerrilla fighter in the War of Independence, who acted in Catalonia. On the other hand, the other three generals did not put up excessive resistance: nor did the Count de la Bisbal, who was in command of the Reserve Army of Castilla la Nueva; nor Pablo Morillo, in command of the forces of Galicia and Asturias; nor Francisco Ballesteros, in command of the troops of Navarre, Aragon and the Mediterranean. The consequence was that the French army advanced towards the south with relative ease —on May 13 it entered Madrid—, although the speed of the campaign can be tricky as the French had left most of the strongholds behind without occupying them.

With the exception of several cities, which demonstrated great defense capacity (such as La Coruña, which resisted until the end of August; Pamplona and San Sebastián, which did not capitulate until September, or Barcelona, Tarragona, Cartagena and Alicante, which continued to fight until November, when the constitutional regime had been overthrown for more than a month), there was no popular resistance to the invasion, nor were anti-French guerrillas formed as during the War of Independence (rather the opposite occurred: the royalist parties joined the French army). "Two of the main ideas that supported the resistance of 1808 had disappeared in 1823, so that not even the king was a prisoner of the French —on the contrary, many presented him as a hostage to the liberals —, nor was the Catholic religion in danger, because this time the French troops appeared alienated along with the defenders of the throne and the altar", Gonzalo Butrón Prida pointed out to explain the passivity of the Spanish population in the face of the invasion.

The Duke of Angulema, commander-in-chief of the One hundred thousand Sons of Saint Louis.

When the Duke of Angoulême entered Madrid on May 23, among the peals of bells from all the churches in the capital, he appointed a Regency presided over by the Duke of Infantado. Angoulême justified it in a proclamation that said: «The time has come to establish in a solemn and stable way the regency that must be in charge of administering the country, organizing the army, and agreeing with me on the means of carrying out the great work of freeing your king."

As the French troops advanced south, the Spanish royalists unleashed "a general explosion of violence" that "covered the country with revenge and outrages, practiced without submitting to any authority or following any rule" and whose victims were the liberals The Duke of Angoulême felt obliged to intervene and on August 8, 1823 he promulgated the Ordinance of Andújar that stripped the royalist authorities of the power to carry out persecutions and arrests for political reasons, a power that was reserved to the French military authorities. The royalist rejection was immediate, triggering "an insurrection of absolutist Spain against the French" which was successful since on August 26 the Duke of Angoulême rectified (officially "clarified" the decree), pressured by the French Government concerned about the crisis that was being experienced and the opposition to the Ordinance of the Holy Alliance. The scope of application of the Ordinance was restricted to the officers and troops included in the military capitulations, with which that it was repealed de facto..

Palace of Customs (Cadiz), residence of the king during the French siege of 1823. From the rooftop Fernando VII he entertained flying kites and contemplating the seeders with glasses. It has been discussed whether flying kites was a mere fun or a means of communicating with the enemy through agreed signals. What is known is that Fernando VII, using various media, was in contact with the realists and the French and led them to “recover” him..

On June 9, the French troops crossed Despeñaperros, defeating the forces of General Plasencia who faced them, thus clearing the way to Seville, where the Government, the Parliament, the King and the family were at that time Faced with the threat of invasion, the Cortes and the government —actually, two governments: the one headed by Evaristo San Miguel and the one headed by Álvaro Flórez Estrada— had left Madrid on March 20 —three weeks before for the first French soldier to cross the border—to head south, settling in Seville on April 10, where Ferdinand VII and the royal family were taken, despite his refusal to do so. Ferdinand VII was to meet the French troops: "Will the foreigners arrive soon?", according to the French ambassador, had been his main concern for some time.

The Cortes resumed its sessions on April 23 and the following day the king signed the declaration of war on France. Shortly after, the cabinet headed by San Miguel resigned, which would have given way to the cabinet whose main figure was Flórez Estrada, but the opposition of a large group of deputies opened a new political crisis that would only be resolved the following month with the formation of a new government whose main figure was the exalted José María Calatrava, who did not occupy the Secretary of the Office of State, as had been the norm, but rather that of Grace and Justice.

On June 11 the Cortes decided to move from Seville to Cádiz, taking the king and the royal family with them, again against their will. Ferdinand VII was even more obstinate than in Madrid not to to undertake the trip, for which reason the Cortes decided that the king was suffering a "temporary lethargy" and, in accordance with the Constitution, they disqualified him from exercising his functions due to "moral impediment" and appointed a Regency that would hold the powers of the Crown during the trip to Cádiz (it was made up of Cayetano Valdés, Gabriel Ciscar and Gaspar de Vigodet). declared all the deputies who had participated in the deliberations to disqualify the king guilty of lese majesty (this will be the "crime" for which Rafael del Riego, "the hero of Las Cabezas de San Juan" will be hanged). As soon as they arrived in Cádiz on June 15, the constitutional Regency ceased and the king recovered his powers.

Cádiz was besieged by the French army, as it had been thirteen years ago. On the night of August 30 to 31, French troops took the Trocadero fort and twenty days later that of Sancti Petri, with which the Resistance became impossible. Cádiz this time had not had the help of the British fleet by sea as in 1810.

The "liberation" of Ferdinand VII and the restoration of the absolute monarchy

José Aparicio's painting depicting Fernando VII's disembarkation in the Port of Santa María after being "liberated" from his "cautious" in Cadiz. It is received by the Duke of Angulema, commander of the One hundred thousand Sons of Saint Louisand the Duke of the Infantado, president of the absolutist Regency appointed by the French.

Well public and notorious went to all my vassals the scandalous events that preceded, accompanied and followed the establishment of the democratic Constitution of Cadiz in the month of March 1820; the most criminal situation, the most shameful cowardice, the most horrendous contempt of my Real Person and the most inevitable violation, were the elements used to essentially vary the paternal government of my realms in a fecuternal government. (...)

(...) I am seated again on the throne of St. Ferdinand by the wise and just hand of the Almighty, by the generous resolutions of my powerful allies and by the denoted efforts of my cousin, the Duke of Anguloma and his brave army, wishing to provide the remedy for the most urgent needs of my peoples, and to manifest to the whole world my true freedom I have come to decree the following:
One. The acts of the so-called constitutional government (of any kind and condition that they may be) that have dominated my peoples are null and void (...), declaring, as I declare, that throughout this period I have lacked freedom; forced to sanction the laws and to issue orders, decrees and regulations that against my will were meditated and issued in the same government.
2.° I approve everything that has been decreed by the Provisional Board of Government and by the Regency of the Kingdom. (...)

Port of Santa Maria, October 1, 1823,

On September 30, 1823, after nearly four months of siege, the Liberal government decided, with the approval of the Cortes, to let King Ferdinand VII go, who met with the Duke of Angoulême —and with the Duke del Infantado, president of the royalist Regency—the following day, October 1, in Puerto de Santa María, on the other side of the Bay of Cádiz that the king and the royal family crossed aboard an decorated felucca. A good part of the liberals who were in Cádiz fled to England via Gibraltar, thinking that the king would not fulfill his promise, made shortly before he was "liberated", to "carry and make carry out a general, complete and absolute oblivion of all the past, without exception [sic] any”. They were not wrong.

As soon as Ferdinand VII was released, he retracted the promises he had made and barely disembarked in Puerto de Santa María, ignoring Angoulême's advice to "extend the amnesty as long as possible" and that "it was convenient not to return to to fall into a situation that would lead to events like those of 1820 reoccurring" (Ferdinand VII limited himself to answering: "Long live the absolute king!"), he promulgated a decree in which he repealed all the legislation of the Triennium (with which he also did not fulfill the promise he had made to the king of France and the tsar of Russia that he was not going to "reign again under the regime they call absolute"):

All acts of the so-called constitutional government, of any kind and condition that they may be, which has dominated my peoples from March 7, 1820 to this day, October 1, 1823, declaring, as I declare, that in all this time I have lacked freedom, forced to sanction laws and to issue orders, decrees and regulations that against my will were meditated and issued by the same government.

Later, Ferdinand VII wrote the following, recalling the October 1st when he arrived at Puerto de Santa María:

Happy day for me, for the royal family and for the whole nation; for we have recovered from this moment our most desired and just freedom, after three years, six months and twenty days of the most ignominious slavery, in which they managed to put a handful of conspirators for speculation, and of obscure and ambitious military that, not knowing how to write their names well, they built themselves in regeneration of Spain,

On November 30, 1823, the Duke of Angoulême gave the last general order from Oyarzun, back to France: «Having successfully ended the campaign with the liberation of the King of Spain and the capture or submission of the squares of his kingdom, I record the Army of the Pyrenees, by abandoning it, my most lively satisfaction for their zeal ». The next day he crossed the border by the Bidasoa river. «The war of France against constitutional Spain had lasted seven and a half months. Ferdinand VII came out of it as a true winner, "concludes Emilio La Parra López.

The Ominous Decade

Main article: Decade Ominosa

Portrait of Fernando VII of the painter Vicente López, carried out in 1828 by the Bank of San Carlos. This is described by historian Emilio La Parra López: "A general captain's dress, with all the important decorations and the sceptre on the right hand, the king is seated, an unusual posture in the Spanish history of the royal portraits, with the left hand sitting on a book placed on a table. On the roof of one of them read: 'R. S. FERNANDO's BANCO. Obesity and the defendants in the hair are well manifest. This canvas, said J.L. Díez, offers 'doubtlessly the most sincere image of the monarch aborate in his mature age'. It is also that of the reformist king, worried about boosting the economy of the kingdom."

The term Ominous Decade —that is, abominable— was coined by the liberals who suffered repression and exile during those ten years. The French Hispanist Jean-Philippe Luis has qualified this vision of the period: «On the one hand, the ominous decade is not reduced to the end of a world but rather participates in the construction of the State and of liberal society. On the other hand, the regime is at the same time tyrannical and voluntarily or involuntarily reforming. The latter constitutes what Luis calls "the other side of the ominous decade".

Repression and exile

The repression was greater than in 1814, when the first restoration of the absolute monarchy took place, among other reasons because there were many more liberals in 1823 than nine years before. As soon as Ferdinand VII recovered his absolute powers on October 1 he reneged on his promise of a "complete and absolute general oblivion of everything in the past, without any exception". arranged and to all social order". In fact, during the following years, the French troops that remained in Spain by virtue of the agreement signed between the two monarchies will intervene on numerous occasions to protect the population with liberal sympathies from the harassment and repressive excesses of the absolutism.

Rigo led by the realistic to La Carolina prison (1835).

The symbol of the repression unleashed by Fernando VII, despite the advice of the French to try to mitigate it, was the execution by hanging in the Plaza de la Cebada in Madrid of Rafael de Riego on November 7, 1823. Another case that exemplifies the harshness of the repression was that of Juan Martín Díez, "El Empecinado", a guerrilla fighter and hero of the War of Independence. He spent more than twenty months in prison in inhumane conditions until, after a mock trial he was hanged on August 19, 1825.

Recorded titled "Autodafé à Valence (Juillet 1826)" which allegedly reproduced the execution by heresy of Cayetano Ripoll, but which in fact represents a self of faith of the Inquisition (the reo carries a sambenito and is to be burned at the stake). Ripoll was hanged by a judgment of the Board of Faith of the diocese of Valencia and his body was only "burned" symbolically. The execution of Ripoll took place in the Plaza del Mercado de Valencia, and the buildings, surely invented, that appear in the engraving are not those of that central square of the city.

A month before the arrest of El Empecinado, death sentences and imprisonment had been decreed for those who declared themselves supporters of the Constitution. Purification boards for State Administration officials had also been operating for some time. Military commissions were also established, in charge of persecuting those who had demonstrated, in word or deed, against the absolute regime or in favor of the constitutional one. Likewise, the Boards of Faith were created in some dioceses, which assumed part of the functions and methods of the Inquisition, which was not restored despite pressure from the "ultra-absolutists". One of his victims would be the Valencian deist teacher Cayetano Ripoll, executed as a "stubborn heretic" on July 31, 1826. In order to centralize the repression and avoid "popular excesses", the General Superintendence of Police was created in January 1824, which also assumed the ideological control previously exercised by the Inquisition.

Repression of liberals in the vicinity of the citadel of Barcelona, guarded by Mozos de Es Tablaa under the supervision of the count of Spain, governor of that square after the end of the Liberal Trienio.

One of the victims of the repression was the liberal clergy, or simply those who had not opposed the constitutional regime, and it was exerted above all by the Catholic Church itself. Another sector that was a victim of the repression was the army. Fernando VII ordered his government in December 1823: «Dissolution of the army and formation of a new one». Thus, hundreds of officers were subjected to "purification processes", many of which ended with their temporary or permanent expulsion from the Army.

The pressure of the European powers forced Ferdinand VII to decree a "general pardon and pardon" on May 11, 1824, but this amnesty contained so many exceptions that in practice it implied the condemnation of all those included in them, for which produced the paradoxical effect that many people, who until then thought they were safe, left Spain as a result of its promulgation.

The harsh repression unleashed against the liberals caused many of them to go into exile, as in 1814. It was the largest political exile that Restoration Europe experienced. It is estimated that there could have been about 15,000 —around 20,000, according to some estimates— and their main destinations were France (which hosted 77%), England (11%), Gibraltar and Portugal, in that order. In France many liberals had been taken there as prisoners of war (many of them were soldiers and non-commissioned officers of the Spanish army and members of the National Militia). It was in England where most of the public positions of the constitutional State (deputies, secretaries of the Office, political leaders, etc.) took refuge, as well as officers and heads of the Army, as well as journalists, intellectuals, and other prominent members of the enlightened and liberal middle class, with which the political and cultural epicenter of exile was located in England (the conspiracies to overthrow absolutism would be organized there), while the most popular sectors were in France.

The exiles were not freed from the surveillance and control of the absolutist State, since for this purpose Fernando VII created a special police force, called "high police" or "reserved police", which was under the direct orders of the Secretary of the Office of Gracia y Justicia Calomarde and acted outside the General Superintendence of Police. On the other hand, Juan Luis Simal has highlighted that the Spanish liberal exile, together with the Neapolitan, the Piedmontese and the Portuguese (although to a lesser extent), «was central to the development of a European liberal policy. In an apparently paradoxical way, the defeat of southern constitutionalism in 1821-1823 reinforced European liberalism in the following decades. Exile facilitated contact between liberals from various countries and the formation of international networks that kept alive the political commitment with the reprisals." Thus, a "liberal internationalism" was born in which the exiled Spanish liberals and their experience of the Triennium played a role very prominent.

The liberal exiles were able to begin to return to Spain after the approval of a first amnesty in October 1832, while Ferdinand VII was still alive, on the initiative of his wife, María Cristina de Borbón, and the "reformist" absolutists, but it contained many exceptions, so that the definitive return did not take place until the approval of a second amnesty in October 1833, one month after the death of Fernando VII, which was extended in February 1834, after the arrival of the government of the moderate liberal Francisco Martínez de la Rosa, who had already headed the Government for several months during the Triennium.

The division of the absolutists: “reformists” versus “ultras” (or “apostolics”)

See also: Ultras (absolutism) and War of the Agraved.

Just as in the Liberal Triennium (1820-1823) there was a split between the liberals between «moderates» and «exalted», during the Ominous Decade it was the absolutists who divided between «reformist» absolutists —supporters of « soften" absolutism following the warnings of the Quadruple Alliance and restored Bourbon France—and the "ultras" or "apostolic" absolutists who advocated the complete restoration of absolutism, including the reestablishment of the Inquisition that King Ferdinand VII, pressured by the European powers, there was no replacement after its abolition by the liberals during the Triennium. The ultras or apostolics, also called ultra-royalists or ultra-absolutists, had their main supporter in the king's brother, Carlos María Isidro de Borbón —heir to the throne because Fernando VII had not managed to have children after three marriages—, for this reason they also He sometimes called them "Carlists". The most serious conflict involving the ultra-absolutists was the Guerra dels Malcontents that took place in 1827 and took place in Catalonia.

Luis López Ballesteros, secretary of the Treasury Office between 1823 and 1832, was one of the most outstanding "reformist" absolutists.

Three decisions of the "reformist" government appointed by Ferdinand VII, backed by himself, caused the absolutists to split between "reformists" and "ultras". The first, and the one that was most radically rejected by the ultras for considering it an inadmissible concession to liberalism, was the non-restoration of the Inquisition abolished by the liberals in March 1820 ―the “ultras” considered the Holy Office as the most important symbol of the Old Regime in Spain―. The second was the creation in January 1824 of the General Superintendence of Police, which was to become a key institution in the repressive policy of the absolutist regime and which assumed many of the functions that the Inquisition had performed until then, such as book censorship ― For this reason it was rejected by the ultras, since they considered that public order should be controlled by the Holy Office and by the royalist volunteers and not by a centralized state body of suspicious "French origin". The third measure was the granting of a very limited amnesty ("general pardon and pardon") to the liberals, which was also rejected by the "ultras" despite the fact that it contained so many exceptions that it was practically inoperative.

General José de la Cruz, Secretary of the War Office. The approval of the regulations of the Realist Volunteers, rejected by those who refused to fulfill it, ended up causing the dismissal of their office, being replaced by the ultra José Aymerich.

There was a fourth reason for the breakup. The agreement signed in February 1824 with the French monarchy whereby 45,000 men of the One Hundred Thousand Sons of Saint Louis would remain in Spain, deployed in 48 places (Madrid, Cádiz, La Coruña, Badajoz, Cartagena, Vitoria, and several Catalan towns, including Barcelona, on the Cantabrian coast and on the Pyrenean border) each with a French commander and with powers over public order ―the economic cost would be borne by the Spanish Treasury and the agreement it would be renewed year by year until 1828. In the ultras proclamations the phrase "Out with the French!" will frequently appear. A fifth reason was the approval at the end of February 1824 by the Secretary of the Office of War, General José de la Cruz, of the new regulation of the Volunteers Royalists who was very poorly received by them and refused to obey him. In it, "day laborers and all those who cannot support themselves and their families on the days that they have to serve in their town" were excluded from the body. On August 26, General De la Cruz was dismissed, accused of collusion with the landing in Tarifa of the liberal colonel Francisco Valdés Arriola who held the position between August 3 and 19 ―36 members of the attempt were shot―. His replacement was the "ultra" José Aymerich. In 1826 a new regulation of royalist volunteers was approved that did accept day laborers and also ordered the authorities to prefer "for jobs that can be offered in towns and in equal circumstances to the royalist volunteers, especially the day laborers".

Portrait of Carlos María Isidro de Borbón, brother of the king and heir to the throne, by Vicente López Portaña. The name "Carlos V" was sometimes acclaimed by the ultras, the idea of which he shared.

As soon as it was confirmed that the Inquisition was not going to be reestablished and the amnesty was approved in May 1824, even if it was so extremely limited, the ultras began to organize and conspire. They had the firm support of the Spanish Church and the Royalist Volunteers, converted into the "armed wing" of ultra-realism. And they also had the support of the heir to the throne and brother of King Don Carlos, that of his wife María Francisca de Braganza and that of his sister-in-law the princess de Beira, to the point that his rooms in the Palace constituted the center of the "apostolic party".

David Wilkie's painting that represents the meeting in a inn of the command of a guerrilla group among which is a friar. Wilkie was in Spain between October 1827 and June 1828.

The first “ultra” insurrection occurred a few days after the amnesty decree was published in May 1824. It was led by the Aragonese royalist party leader Joaquín Capapé, known as El Royo Capapé. In Teruel he gathered several dozen discontented officers and soldiers but they were captured by the troops sent by the governor of the province. He was sentenced to exile for six years in Puerto Rico, where he arrived at the end of September 1827. He would die shortly after: on Christmas Day. In September of the same year, 1824, the second attempt took place, which this time took place in La Mancha, and which was led, like the Capapé revolt, by royalist officers who were dissatisfied with the treatment received after having participated in the 1823 campaign that had put an end to the constitutional regime. The ringleader was Manuel Adame de la Pedrada, a former leader of the royalist parties also known as ''El Locho'', and the immediate justification for the revolt was, according to a witness in the court case, that "if the king has pardoned to the blacks [to the liberals], we do not forgive it ». However, the cause ended up being dismissed because the idea prevailed that the conspiracy had been a machination "of the [liberal] revolutionaries to divide and engender discord starting with the Royal family." Royalist volunteers had also participated in the conspiracy. He had planned to distribute among his men the lands of a large local owner.

Francisco Tadeo Calomarde, a prominent ultra Secretary of the Office of Grace and Justice from January 1824 to October 1832.

Angel Lizcano: Fusilamientos de Bessières, illustration of the work of Fernando Fernández de Córdoba, My intimate memories, t. I, Madrid, Rivadeneyra Successors, 1886. National Library of Spain.

The third insurrectional attempt, the most serious of the three, took place in August 1825. It was led by the royalist general Jorge Bessières. At dawn on August 16, he left Madrid at the head of a cavalry column to join a group of committed royalist volunteers in Brihuega (Guadalajara) (Bessières had spread the news that they intended to restore the Constitution) and from there he planned to take Sigüenza, but the arrival in that town of troops sent by the government headed by the Count of Spain - there were 3,000 men compared to the 300 of Bessières - made him give up. He let his troops go and on the 23rd he was captured in Zafrilla. On August 26, by express order of the king, he was shot in Molina de Aragón along with the seven officers who had remained with him ―a week before the liberal guerrilla El Empecinado had been executed in Roa ―. The Bessières conspiracy had ramifications in the capital and many of those involved, among them very prominent ultras, some of them clergymen, were arrested by the police, but they spent very little time in jail for "the complicity of some authorities or, at least, their fear of the consequences that a general persecution against the ultra or Carlist party could have for the government".

The most important ultra-absolutist uprising of the decade (and which is considered a "dress rehearsal" for the first Carlist war) was the so-called "guerra dels malcontents" ("war of the aggrieved"). It had its The main stage was in Catalonia, although there were also ultra insurrections but of lesser importance in the Basque Country, Valencia, Andalusia, Aragon and La Mancha. It began in the spring of 1827 with the formation of the first royalist parties in the Lands of the Ebro. But when it reached its peak it was in summer. The insurgents, mostly peasants and artisans, came to mobilize in Catalonia between 20 000 and 30,000 men and by mid-September they occupied most of the Principality. The leaders of the rebellion were former royalist officers of the "army of faith" who had fought alongside the French army of One Hundred Thousand Children of Saint Louis.

On August 28, they set up in Manresa a Provisional Superior Board of Government of the Principality chaired by Colonel Agustín Saperes, called "Caragol", who in a statement of September 9 insisted on fidelity to King Ferdinand VII. To legitimize the rebellion, the "malcontents" claimed that King Ferdinand VII was "kidnapped" by the government, for which reason his objective was to "sustain the sovereignty of our beloved King Ferdinand", although they also cheered "Carlos Quinto", the king's brother and heir to the throne, who shared the ultra ideology.

Archbishopric Palace of Tarragona. There he signed Fernando VII. Manifesto to put an end to the rebellion of the “malcontents”.

Given the magnitude of the rebellion and its extension outside Catalonia, the government decided to send an army to the Principality, with the notorious absolutist Count of Spain at the helm as the new captain general, and, at the same time, to organize a visit by the king to Catalonia (where he arrived, via Valencia, at the end of September accompanied by a single minister, the "ultra" Francisco Tadeo Calomarde) to dispel all doubts about his supposed lack of freedom and to urge the insurgents to lay down their arms. On September 28, a Manifesto of Fernando VII was made public from the Archiepiscopal Palace of Tarragona in which he said:

You see with my coming the vain and absurd pretexts that have so far sought to covet their rebellion. Neither I am oppressed, nor the people who deserve my trust conspire against our Holy Religion, nor the Dangerous Fatherland, nor the honor of my Crown has compromised, nor my Sovereign authority is coerced by anyone.

The effect of the Manifesto was immediate and caused many of the insurgents to surrender or rout. A few days later, Manresa, Vic, Olot and Cervera surrendered without resistance. Although the rebellion would continue for a few months, it could be considered over by mid-October. During that time, as Juan Francisco Fuentes has pointed out, "the repression acted relentlessly against the rebels, with summary executions and the arrest of suspects both in Catalonia and in the rest of Spain, where the uprising had numerous supporters." The repression in Catalonia was directed by the Count of Spain, who also extended it to the liberals, after the abandonment of Catalonia by French troops that until then had protected them. "The Catalans would take time to forget the harshness practiced by the Count of Spain in the repression of the insurgents," said Emilio La Parra López.

Regarding the consequences of the «guerra dels malcontents», Ángel Bahamonde and Jesús A. Martínez have stressed that its failure marked «a new course for the royalists». "Feeling let down by a legitimate King who represented his principles and wanted to defend, the Infante [don Carlos]'s proclivity towards the alternative began to take shape."

The Failed Liberal Conspiracies

Pablo Iglesias, litography of Vicente Camarón for painting by R. Trajani. Registration: "D. PABLO YGLESIAS / Regidor of Madrid in 1822 and captain of hunters of the National/Bíctima militia of his patriotism died in Madrid on August 25, 1825 / but always accompanied by his natural value, he addressed to the people the words / of freedom or death, at the time of execution of his sentence». National Library of Spain.

The liberals were convinced that the experience of the 1820 revolution could be repeated, that is, "it would be enough for a liberal caudillo to set foot on Spanish soil and proclaim the good news of freedom to get the people to "They did not understand that since 1823 terror had carried out its work very effectively and that the government, incompetent in matters such as finance, was much more effective in the arts of surveillance and repression", Josep Fontana has stated.

The first attempt to carry out this «insurrectionary utopia of liberalism» took place on August 3, 1824. It was a pronouncement led by the exiled colonel Francisco Valdés Arriola who, starting from Gibraltar, took the city of Tarifa and held the position until August 19. At the same time, a second group led by Pablo Iglesias landed in Almería with the hope of receiving the support of "thousands of addicts." But the two operations failed because, contrary to what the liberals expected, they did not find any support from the population. The more than one hundred captured in the attempt, in whose arrest French troops also intervened, were immediately executed. Pablo Iglesias would be hanged in Madrid on August 25 of the following year, while Colonel Valdés managed to escape to Tangier along with about fifty of his men.

The second insurrectional attempt was led by Colonel Antonio Fernández Bazán and his brother Juan who organized a landing in Guardamar in February 1826. They were persecuted by the royalist volunteers and captured along with the men under their command. All of them were shot. Antonio Fernández Bazán, badly wounded, was tortured to make him confess "the plot and projects of his conspiracies" and, fearing that he would die beforehand, he was shot on March 4 in Orihuela "on the same stretcher in that he was carried away for his gangrenous wounds".

General Francisco Espoz and Mina. He chaired the London Board in exile and led an attempted invasion of Spain by Vera de Bidasoa.

The triumph of the July Revolution of 1830, which put an end to absolutism in France and gave way to the constitutional monarchy of Luis Felipe de Orleans, provided a great boost to the insurrectionary plans of the Spanish liberal exiles who hoped to count on the support of the new French government (although this one finally, as soon as it obtained the recognition of Fernando VII, not only would not support them but would order to dissolve the concentrations of Spanish liberals on the border).

On September 22, 1830, an insurrectional junta was formed in Bayonne to which Francisco Espoz y Mina joined. In October and November he organized several military expeditions in the Pyrenees but they all ended in failure. The Vera de Bidasoa operation, which took place between October 20 and 24, was personally directed by Mina. Coinciding with the Vera de Bidasoa operation, there was an attempted invasion of Catalonia led by Colonel Antonio Baiges ―it was hoisting the French tricolor flag and the Spanish tricolor flag (red, yellow and purple)―. All these operations failed because they did not receive a response from the interior and also because they were carried out hastily due to pressure from the French gendarmerie deployed on the border, which forced them to advance their plans.

The Rock of Gibraltar around 1830.

For his part, José María Torrijos, the other leader of the liberal exile along with Espoz and Mina, continued preparing an uprising in southern Spain from Gibraltar. Between October 1830 and January 1831 the first two attempts took place, by Algeciras and by La Línea de la Concepción, respectively, but both failed ―almost at the same time, the inland juntas loyal to Mina, coordinated by a Central Junta in Madrid, headed by Agustín Marco-Artu, made several attempts in Campo de Gibraltar, the Serranía de Ronda and the Bay of Cádiz that also failed―.

On February 21, Salvador Manzanares took Los Barrios at the head of some fifty men, but not only did they not receive the promised help from the liberals of the area of Algeciras and the Serranía de Ronda, but they were also betrayed ―seven of the survivors were able to flee and return to Gibraltar; Manzanares also fled but was finally captured in Estepona and shot on March 8. Almost at the same time there was a rebellion in Cádiz supported by a brigade of the navy that was also crushed ―the insurgents who did not manage to flee to Africa, where they had to convert to Islam to save their lives, were executed for having given "the infamous cry of freedom» -. In the following days La Gaceta de Madrid announced "the end of the revolutionary attempts in the Peninsula", with a balance of "fifteen expeditions made by different points and by various chiefs [sic] since the year of 24". Thanks to a complaint in exchange for money, the police arrested several members of the board headed by Marco-Artu in Madrid. Someone was able to escape like the young Salustiano Olózaga but others were executed such as Juan de la Torre, for having given a "long live freedom", and the bookseller Antonio Miyar.

Fusilamiento de Torrijos en la playa de San Andrés (Málaga) por Antonio Gisbert Pérez, en 1888 (Museo del Prado).

Despite all the setbacks, José María Torrijos was not discouraged and led the last attempt to “break” to the south, to which the liberals from the interior had to join. On December 2, 1831, Torrijos disembarked in Fuengirola, deceived by the governor of Malaga, Vicente González Moreno, who had posed as a liberal conspirator with the code name "Viriato" and who was the one who organized the trap that ended with the arrest. on December 5 in Alhaurín el Grande, where they had taken refuge, from Torrijos and the 52 men who accompanied him "hoisting the tricolor flag [red, yellow, purple] and shouting Long live freedom!" They were shot in two shifts on the beach of San Andrés on December 11, among them a fifteen-year-old adolescent who was believed to be acting as a cabin boy but was unaware of the facts. González Moreno (« Viriato») was rewarded with the appointment of Captain General of Granada. The news of the execution of Torrijos and his 48 comrades who had survived, spread throughout Europe, caused a deep commotion, especially in France and Great Britain where numerous articles appeared in the press denouncing the actions of the Spanish Government.

With his execution «the trajectory of an emblematic figure in the way of understanding liberalism and a long sequence of insurrectionary projects based on the pronouncement ended. He abandoned this strategy as a method of overthrowing absolutism and a way of understanding the liberal revolution. Liberalism would arrive through a complex transition process, which was already beginning to take shape." A few months earlier (in May) Mariana Pineda, a young widow from Granada, had been executed for having found a purple flag on which they appeared half embroider the words "Liberty, Equality, Law".

The end of the reign of Ferdinand VII and the succession lawsuit (1830-1833)

María Cristina de Borbón-Dos Sicilias portrayed by Vicente López.

See also: Pragmatic Sanction of 1830 and Events of the Farm (1832).

After the sudden death on May 19, 1829 of his third wife, María Josefa Amalia of Saxony, the king announced only four months later (on September 26) that he was going to marry again. to be his wife was the Neapolitan princess María Cristina de Borbón-Dos Sicilias, Fernando's niece and 22 years younger than him. They were married by proxy on December 9 —the marriage was ratified on the 11th— and a few months later (on March 31) Fernando VII made public the Pragmatic Sanction of 1789 approved at the beginning of the reign of his father Carlos IV that abolished the Auto Acordado of 1713 by which the Salic Law had been established in Spain, which prevented women from being able to reign. In this way Fernando VII made sure that if he finally had descendants, his son or daughter would succeed him. At the beginning of May 1830, a month after the promulgation of the Pragmática, it was announced that Queen María Cristina was pregnant, and on October 10, 1830, a girl, Isabel, was born, for which Carlos María Isidro de Borbón was left out. succession to the throne, much to the consternation of his ultra-absolutist supporters (already recognized as "Carlists").

Recorded of the swearing of Princess Isabel by the Courts gathered in the Church of St.Jerome the Royal on June 20, 1833. To the “olent” ceremony they “followed ten days of parties: horseback riding in the Plaza Mayor, military drills...”.

The "Carlistas", who were taken by surprise by the publication of the Pragmática in 1789, were not resigned to the fact that the newborn Isabella was the future queen and tried to take advantage of the opportunity that the September 16th provided them In 1832, Fernando VII's delicate state of health worsened —he was convalescing in his La Granja palace (in Segovia)—. His wife, Queen María Cristina, pressured and deceived by the "ultra" ministers, the Count of Alcudia and Calomarde, and by the ambassador of the Kingdom of Naples (supported by the Austrian ambassador, who is the one who directs "the strings from the shadows"), who assured him that the Army would not support him in his Regency when the king died (and trying to avoid a civil war, according to her own later testimony), she influenced her husband to revoke the Pragmatic Sanction of March 31, 1830. On the 18th the king signed the annulment of the Pragmatic of the "salic law", by so the rule that prevented women from reigning was back in force.

But Fernando VII unexpectedly recovered his health and on October 1 he dismissed the government, which included the ministers who had cheated on his wife, and on December 31 he annulled in a solemn act the repealing decree that had never been published (since the king had signed it on the condition that it not appear in the official newspaper La Gaceta de Madrid until after his death), but that the "Carlists" had taken it upon themselves to divulge. In this way, Isabel, two years old, was once again the heir to the throne.

The definitive break with the «Carlistas» occurred due to the decision adopted by the Government on February 3, 1833 to expel the princess of Beria from the court for her direct involvement in the ultra conspiracies and for the influence that he exercised over his brother-in-law Don Carlos, encouraging him to defend his rights to the succession against the king's daughter, Isabel. Unexpectedly, Don Carlos announced that, together with his wife María Francisca de Braganza and their children, he would accompany his sister-in-law on his trip to Portugal. They left Madrid on March 16 and arrived in Lisbon on the 29th. In this way, Don Carlos avoided swearing Isabella in as Princess of Asturias and heir to the throne. During the following weeks, Fernando VII and his brother Carlos exchanged an abundant correspondence in the that it became clear that he refused to swear Isabel as heir ("being well convinced of the legitimate rights that assist me to the crown of Spain," he wrote), thus sealing the final break between the two. The king ended up ordering him to settle in the Papal States and never to return to Spain, for which he put a frigate at his disposal - an order that Don Carlos did not comply with, making all kinds of excuses. On June 20 they met the traditional Courts in the Church of San Jerónimo el Real, as in 1789, for the oath of Isabel as heir to the Crown. Three months later, on Sunday, September 29, 1833, King Ferdinand VII died, starting a war for the succession to the Crown between "Isabelinos" —supporters of Elizabeth II—, also called "Christinos" after her mother, who assumes the regency, and "Carlistas" —supporters of her uncle Carlos.

Predecessor: Spain during the War of Independence	Periods of History of Spain Absolutist restoration in Spain	Successor: Queen of Elizabeth II

Más resultados...