The Bourbon Dynasty

French Intervention, 1823.—In spite of the vigorous protest of Great Britain, which saw in this demand only a pretext for reviving the traditional Bourbon ambitions in the peninsula, the mandate was granted by the majority of the powers; and on April 7, 1823 the duke of Angouleme, at the head of a powerful army, crossed the Bidassoa. The result was a startling proof of the flimsy structure of Spanish Liberalism. What the genius of Na poleon had failed to accomplish in years, Angouleme seemed to have achieved in a few weeks. But the difference of their task was fundamental. Napoleon had sought to impose upon Spain an alien dynasty; Angouleme came to restore the Spanish king "to his own," and found the active support of some Spaniards and the tacit co-operation of the majority. The cortes, carrying the king with it, fled to Cadiz, and after a siege, surrendered with no conditions save that of an amnesty, to which Ferdinand solemnly swore before he was sent over into the French lines. As was to be expected, an oath taken "under compulsion" by such a man was little binding; and the French troops were compelled to witness, with helpless indignation, the orgy of cruel reaction which immediately began under the protection of their bayonets.

The Spanish Colonies.—If anything could have recalled the distracted country to harmony and order, it would have been the object-lesson presented by the loss of all its colonies on the continent of America, just as at an earlier date England had lost a great part of her American dominions. Some of them had already become de facto independent after 1810 and many more in the ten years following, and the recognition of their indepen dence de jure was, for Great Britain at least, merely a question of time. When the Angouleme invasion of Spain was seen to be in evitable, Canning had informed the French Government that Great Britain would not tolerate the subjugation of the Spanish colonies by foreign force. A disposition of the powers of the Grand Alliance to come to the aid of Spain in this matter was countered by the famous message of President Monroe (Dec. 2, 1823, see MONROE DOCTRINE), laying the veto of the United States on any interference of concerted Europe in the affairs of the American continent. The republics of Mexico and Colombia were recognized by Great Britain in the following year ; the recog nition of the other states was only postponed until they should have given proof of their stability.

The Succession Question.—In Spain itself, tutored by mis fortune, the efforts of the king's ministers, in the latter part of his reign, were directed to restoring order in the finances and reviving agriculture and industry in the country. The king's chief difficulties lay in the attitude of the extreme monarchists (Apos tolicos) who found leaders in the king's brother Don Carlos and his wife Maria Francisca of Braganza. Yet the absolute monarchy

would probably have lasted for long if a dispute on the succession had not thrown one of the monarchical parties on the support of the Liberals. The king had no surviving children by his first three marriages. By his fourth marriage (1829) with Maria Cristina of Naples he had two daughters. According to the ancient law of Castile and Leon women could rule in their own right, as is shown by the examples of Urraca, Berengaria and Isabella the Catholic. When he died on Sept. 29, 1833, his daughter Isabella II. was proclaimed queen, with her mother Maria Cristina as regent.

The Regency of Cristina.—Maria Cristina would have ruled despotically if she could, and began by announcing that material changes would not be made in the method of government. But the Conservatives preferred to support the late king's brother Don Carlos, and they had the active aid of the Basques, who feared for their local franchises, and of the mountaineers of Navarre, Aragon, Catalonia and Valencia. Maria Cristina had the support of the army, and the control of the machinery of government. The regent soon found that this was not enough to enable her to resist the active hostility of the Carlists and the intrigues of their clerical allies. She was eventually driven by the necessities of her position to accept parliamentary institutions.

The Carlist Wars.

The first civil war, which for the Crown was a dynastic war, and for the nation a struggle between two opposed political principles, was terminated in Aug. 1839 by the convention (convenio) of Vergara between the Carlist general Maroto and the Liberal general Espartero. The Carlist general Cabrera, the most famous of the guerrilleros of his party, left the country. The political struggle was then for some years confined to Government circles; but already a part of the common people had been won over to the cause of Liberalism. In 1841 a crisis arose, the immediate cause of which was a law depriving the towns of a great part of their autonomy. Queen Cristina resigned and fled to France, and General Espartero was declared regent. He held office till 1843, during an agitated period, in which the Carlists reappeared in the north, mutinies were common, and an unsuccessful attempt was made on the part of the enemies of Espartero to kidnap the young queen in her palace on the night of Oct. 7, 1841. In 1843 Espartero, a man of much personal cour age and of fitful energy, but of no political capacity, was expelled by a military rising, promoted by a combination of discontented Liberals and the Moderates. The queen, though only 13 years old, was declared of age.