Spanish Life in Town and Country

by L. Higgin; Eugène E. Street

CHAPTER IX

POLITICAL GOVERNMENT

The Government of Spain ever since the restoration of Don Alfonso XII. has been in reality what it was only in name before—a constitutional monarchy. During the first years of the young King's reign, Cánovas del Castillo being Prime Minister, there was a distinctly reactionary tendency from the Liberalism of Prim and the revolutionary party of 1868. It was almost impossible that it should be otherwise, considering the wild tumult of the varying opinions and the experiments in government that the country had passed through; and some of the difficulties of the situation to-day are no doubt due to the concessions made to the ultra-Conservative party in the re-introduction of the religious orders, which had been suppressed during the regency of Cristina, and had never been tolerated even during the reign of the piadosa, Isabel II.

Prim had, from the first moment that the success of the Revolution was assured and the Queen and her camarilla had crossed the frontier to seek asylum in France, declared for a constitutional monarchy. "How can you have a monarchy without a king?" he was asked by Castelar. "How can you have a republic without republicans!" was his reply. He might have made himself king or military dictator, but he wanted to be neither; nor would he hear of Montpensier, to whom Topete and Serrano had pledged themselves.

The House of Savoy was the next heir to the Spanish throne, had the Bourbons become extinct, and to it the first glances of the Spanish king-maker were directed, but difficulties arose from the dislike of the Duke of Aosta himself to the scheme. A prince of some Liberal country was what was wanted: there was even some talk of offering the crown to the English Duke of Edinburgh, while one party dreamed of an Iberian amalgamation, and suggested Dom Luis of Portugal or his father Dom Ferdinand, the former regent. The candidature of Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, who was a Roman Catholic, was looked upon with a certain amount of favour, but at the eleventh hour Napoleon III. made this scheme a pretext for the quarrel with Prussia which led to the fateful war of 1870 and 1871. Eventually, almost two years after the outbreak of the Revolution, Amadeo of Savoy was chosen by the Cortes at Madrid by a majority of one hundred and five votes, only twenty-three being given for Montpensier and sixty-three for a republic.

On the day that King Amadeo set foot on Spanish soil Prim was assassinated; it was perfectly well known at whose instigation, and the man whom the Spaniards themselves said was demasiado honesto (too honourable) for the hotch-potch of political parties into which he was thrown without a friend or helper, began his vain effort to rule a foreign nation in a constitutional manner. After he had thrown up the thankless task in despair, the absurd Republic of Zorilla and Castelar made confusion worse confounded, and it was with a feeling of relief to all that the pronunciamiento of Martinez Campos at Muviedro put an end to the Spanish Republic under Serrano, and proclaimed the son of Isabel II. as King.

He was but a lad of seventeen, but he had been educated in England; he was known to be brave, dignified, and extremely liberal, so that he was acclaimed throughout Spain, and during his short life he fully justified the high opinion formed of him. But the Government of Cánovas was reactionary, and when the unexpected death of Alfonzo XII. left his young wife, the present Maria Cristina of Austria, a widow under exceptionally trying circumstances, Cánovas himself placed his resignation in her hands, knowing that the Liberals were the party of the nation, and promised to give his own best efforts to work with what had up to then been his Opposition, for the good of the country and of the expected child, who a few months later had the unusual experience of being "born a king."

Whatever may be said about the present Regent,—though in truth little but good has been said or thought of her,—she has been most loyal to the constitution, holding herself absolutely aloof from all favouritism or even apparent predilection. She has devoted her life to the education of her son and to his physical well-being, for he was not a strong child in his early years, and she has done her best, possibly more than any but a woman could have done, to keep the ship of State not only afloat, but making headway during the minority of her son.