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Carlism

Spanish political movement

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The movement was founded as a consequence of an early 19th-century dispute over the succession of the Spanish monarchy and dissatisfaction with the Alfonsine line of the House of Bourbon, and subsequently found itself becoming a notable element of Spanish conservatism in its 19th-century struggle against liberalism, which repeatedly broke out into military conflicts known as the Carlist Wars.

Carlism was at its strongest in the 1830s, but experienced a revival following Spain's defeat in the Spanish–American War in 1898, when the Spanish Empire lost its last remaining significant overseas territories of the Philippines, Cuba, Guam, and Puerto Rico to the United States. It continued to play a notable role in the 20th century as part of the Nationalist faction in the Spanish Civil War and the subsequently triumphant Francoist Spain, but lost power throughout this period, declining rapidly following the death of Francisco Franco in 1975, the subsequent assumption of the throne by Juan Carlos I, the Spanish transition to democracy and the Montejurra incidents in 1976.

Origins

Dynastic issue

Systems of succession in dispute

Traditionally, all but one of the Spanish kingdoms allowed the succession of daughters in the absence of sons and of sisters in the absence of brothers (male-preference primogeniture). The one exception, Aragon, tended to favour semi-Salicism. The most elaborate rules formed the "Seven-part code" (Siete partidas) of the late 13th century.

On 1 November 1700 a French Bourbon prince, Philip V, acceded to the Spanish throne. In the French royal house, Salic law applied, which did not permit female succession. Accordingly, the traditional Spanish order of succession had to give way to a semi-Salic system, which excluded women from the crown unless all males in the agnatic descent from Philip, in any branch, became extinct. It is not implausible that this change might have been enacted at the insistence of a hostile foreign power, as the scenario of such a union could impinge profoundly on questions of national importance (particularly among states that preferred to maintain their distance from policy positions occupied by the Franco-Spanish consensus, of which the Holy Roman Empire was one). Some disagreement on this topic was evident for a number of years, even after it became clear that any question of a Franco-Spanish union was a political non-starter.

Although the Spanish government made several attempts to revert to the traditional order, as in the Decree of 1789 by Charles IV (see below), the succession question became pressing only when, by 1830, Ferdinand VII found himself ailing, without any issue, but with a pregnant wife. He decided in 1830 to promulgate the 1789 decree, securing the crown for the unborn child even if female. The law placed the child, Princess Isabel, ahead of Ferdinand's brother Infante Carlos, who until then had been heir presumptive.

Many contemporaries (starting with the King's brother and the cadet Bourbon branches) saw the changed succession as illegal on various counts. They formed the basis for the dynastic Carlist party, which only recognized the semi-Salic succession law that gave Infante Carlos precedence over Ferdinand's daughter, the future Isabella II.

Historical timeline

  • 13 May 1713: Philip V, first of the Spanish Bourbons, together with the Cortes, Spain's parliament, through an Auto Accordado changes the order of succession to the Spanish crown from that outlined in the Siete Partidas. Where the previous rule consisted of male-preference primogeniture, Philip's new law instituted semi-Salic law, under which accession of a female or her descendants is possible only following the extinction of all dynastic males descended in the male line from Philip V.
  • 1789: Charles IV, fearing for the lives of his two surviving sons after having lost four others, petitions and receives approval from the Cortes for a reversion to the traditional Siete Partidas order of succession. However, the law was not promulgated, in part due to protests from the king's brother, Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies, then third in line for the throne after his two surviving nephews, who viewed the act as stripping him of his pre-existing rights.
  • 1812. A new Spanish constitution outlines the rules of succession in accordance with the Siete Partidas.
  • 31 March 1830: Ferdinand VII, at the time without issue and his fourth wife pregnant, promulgates the Pragmatic Sanction of 1830 which ratifies the 1789 law, thereby re-establishing the pre-Philippine order of succession.
  • 10 October 1830: The future Isabella II is born to Ferdinand VII. After several court intrigues, the Pragmatic Sanction was definitively approved in 1832. Ferdinand's brother, the Infante Don Carlos, up to that time the heir presumptive, feels robbed of his rights, and leaves for Portugal.
  • 1833–1876 Carlist Wars

Political landscape after the death of Ferdinand VII (1833)

As in many European countries, after the Napoleonic occupation, the Spanish political class was split between the "absolutists", supporters of the ancien régime, and the Liberals, influenced by the ideas of the French Revolution. The long war for Spain's independence from the Napoleonic Empire left a large supply of experienced guerrilla fighters and an oversized military officialdom—for the most part, staunch Liberals. The perceived success of the uprising of 1808 against Napoleon left also a broad, if unconscious, belief in the validity of the right of rebellion, with long-lasting effects on the politics of Spain and Spanish America, extending through the 19th century and beyond.

The reign of Ferdinand VII proved unable to overcome the political divide or to create stable institutions. The so-called Liberal Triennium (1820–1823) re-instated the 1812 constitution after a military "pronunciamiento", but was followed by the Ominous Decade (1823–1833), ten years of absolute rule by the king, that left bitter memories of persecution in both parties. While in power, both groups had divided themselves into moderate and radical branches. The radical branch of the absolutists (or royalists), known as the Apostólicos, looked upon the heir presumptive, Don Carlos, as its natural head, as he was profoundly devout and, especially after 1820, staunchly anti-liberal.

In 1827, Catalonia was shaken by the rebellion of the Agreujats or Agraviados ("the Aggrieved"), an ultra-absolutist movement, which, for a time, controlled large parts of the region. The infante was for the first time then hailed as king. He denied any involvement. The last years of King Ferdinand saw a political realignment due to the troubles surrounding his succession. In October 1832, the King formed a moderate royalist government under Francisco Cea Bermúdez, which almost succeeded in curbing the Apostolic party and, through an amnesty, in gaining liberal support for Isabella's right to succeed under the regency of her mother, Maria Christina of Bourbon-Two Sicilies. If only to get rid of Don Carlos, the Liberals accepted the new Princess of Asturias. Moreover, the first years of the 1830s were influenced by the failure of the French Restoration, which meant the end of Bourbon rule in France, and the civil war in Portugal between both legitimist and liberal parties.

Social and economic factors

Besides this political evolution, the years before the Carlist wars were marked by a deep economic crisis in Spain, partly spurred by the loss of the continental American provinces, and by the bankruptcy of the state. The last triggered enhanced tax pressures which further fueled social unrest. Certain economic measures proposed by the Liberals (such as the Desamortización, i.e. the takeover, division and sale of the commons and Church property, initiated in 1821) were directly threatening the viability of many small farms, whose residents were accustomed to rely on the common pasture lands to feed, at little or no cost, their mules and oxen. Widespread poverty followed, as did the closure of most hospitals, schools and other charities.

An important factor was the religious question. The radical liberals (progresistas) after 1820 had grown more and more anticlerical, strongly opposing religious institutes. They were suspected of being adherents of Freemasonry. This policy alienated them from many sectors of the (mostly deeply Catholic) Spanish people, especially in rural areas. The only institution abolished in the "Liberal Triennium" that was not restored by Ferdinand VII was the Inquisition. One of the demands of the radical absolutist party was its reinstitution. Liberals had been, while in power, quite doctrinaire, pursuing centralization and uniform administration.

Besides the Basque Country, in many regions of Spain there were intense particularist feelings, which were thus hurt. While only a secondary factor at the outbreak of the first Carlist war, this anti-uniformist localism, exemplified in the defence of the fueros, would become in time one of the more important banners of Carlism. This won Carlism support in the Basque territories (Navarre, Gipuzkoa, Biscay and Araba), as well as the old realms of the Crown of Aragon (Aragon, Catalonia and Valencia), as those areas resented the abolition of their ancient self-government privileges by issuance of the Nueva Planta Decrees.

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