Spain

by Frederick A. Ober

Momentous events happened during the reign of Ferdinand VII, which reduced his kingdom from a world-embracing dominance almost to the confines of the Iberian Peninsula. When, in the first decade of this century, the Emperor of France turned his greedy eyes toward Spain, she possessed territory now included in Florida, Mexico, Central America, all South America save Brazil; the islands of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and a portion of Santo Domingo in the West Indies, besides the Carolines and Philippines in the East, and her present possessions on and near the western coast of Africa and in the Mediterranean. When it was seen by her colonies that Spain was too weak to resist the imposition of a foreigner upon her throne, their bolder spirits realized that the moment had arrived for deliverance from her oppressions. The standard of revolt was raised in Mexico, 1808; in Venezuela, 1810; Buenos Ayres, Chili, and Peru followed the movement, until, before the death of Ferdinand, every American colony and every island had been lost to Spain except Cuba and Puerto Rico. Long and sanguinary were the struggles between the desperate Spaniards and the aspirants for freedom; but in the end the patriots conquered, and continental America was freed from Spanish misrule. Florida was ceded in 1819 to the United States, which ultimately acquired a vast portion of Mexican territory by conquest and treaty.

CHAPTER XXI.

ISABELLA II AND THE CARLISTS.

The greatest, most illustrious reigns in Spain have been those inaugurated by the placing on the throne of princes already of age, trained in kingly affairs and able to rule without assistance. The weakest, most deplorable reigns have been those where princes or princesses nominally occupied the throne, and regencies or successions of favourites actually held the power. A king or queen should be one pre-eminent for strength and virtues, a leader, a ruler, capable of guiding and fostering the best interests of the subject people. But the Spaniards, through their false notions of chivalry, their romantic ideas of majesty, have lost sight of the primal principles of kingship. Provided that a fantastic figure be elevated to the august position—whether a weak and juvenile scion of royalty, or a gilded and bedizened puppet of rags and putty—it may for a time command their worship and blind adoration! This national trait is admirable, were nothing expected of a king or queen but to act as an ornamental figure-head. Unfortunately, in a nation composed of such diverse and irreconcilable elements as exist in Spain, much more is expected—is demanded.

When, in 1833, at the death of the king, the infanta, Maria Isabella II, was held up for the adoration of the people, most of them fell down and blindly worshipped. The Cortes assembled at Madrid and swore loyalty to the three-year-old queen and her mother, the regent, while the unthinking people went wild in their fervent declarations of devotedness to the heiress of the most corrupt, most intolerant sovereign that had disgraced the throne in many years.

But there was an instant protest from a minor portion of the people, led by the late king’s brother, Don Maria Isidor Carlos de Bourbon; not because of the silly spectacle afforded by placing the reins of power in the hands of a puling infant, but because Don Maria Isidor Carlos de Bourbon wanted the throne for himself! In truth, but for King Ferdinand’s “pragmatic sanction,” abrogating the existing “Salic law” (excluding females from the succession), Don Carlos had every reason to believe he would himself be king. He was born in 1788, or a year before the “pragmatic sanction” was put forth, he was next in line of the male successors, and he meant to “succeed.” So he started a revolution, and thus began, in 1833, the first of that long series of battles, massacres, outrages, known collectively as the “Carlist Wars.”

Don Carlos had been banished by Ferdinand to Portugal for venturing to protest against the very thing that happened later, and after the king’s death he came over the frontier between France and Spain with a small army. His chief adherents were found in the country of the Basques, those brave, peculiar, liberty-loving but bigoted people in the north of Spain, who have dwelt from time immemorial in their beautiful mountain valleys, and whom we have noted at the very beginnings of Spanish history as strenuous opponents of oppression and defenders of their rights, real or imaginary.

Among other rights which they claimed were the ancient fueros—charters or privileges—by which, in consideration of valiant services in the past, they were exempt from most taxes, from enforced military service, etc., and they recognised the ruler of the country not as king or queen, but merely as lord. It was given out by the Carlists that these fueros were to be taken from them by the “liberals,” or adherents to the queen regent, and that only by assisting the really legitimate sovereign (Don Carlos, of course) could they still continue to enjoy their ancient immunities. So they flocked to the Carlist standard, and opposed to them and their associates were the Christinos, or supporters of the queen regent Christina. For seven years they fought, victory first with one side, then with the other. At one time the queen regent and her court were on the point of fleeing the country; the Carlist guerrillas were at the gates of Madrid; but by the persistence of General Espartero, commander of the Christinos, in May, 1840, the last of the pretender’s forces were driven over the frontier. Terrible excesses were committed on both sides; the Carlists, particularly, under the savage Cabrera and Zumalacarregui, showed what the Spaniard is capable of when his evil passions are aroused. “Those days that I do not shed blood,” said the cruel Cabrera, “I do not have a good digestion!” He punished with death the giving of a drink of water to a wounded enemy, and he butchered in cold blood numerous innocent women, children, and aged men. A Christino garrison once surrendered to him on the stipulation that their lives and their clothes should be spared to them. He performed his part by stripping them of their clothing and setting his men to chasing and shooting them until the last one fell! And these conflicts were between men of the same nationality, sometimes of the same township and canton; thus showing to what a state of moral degradation these people had arrived.