King Ferdinand Triumphs

Today’s installment concludes Spanish Demand Constitution,
our selection from History of Modern Europe by Charles A. Fyffe published in 1890.

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Previously in Spanish Demand Constitution.

Time: 1812-1820

The friends of the constitution, and even soldiers who were protected by their capitulation with the French, were thrown into prison by the new local authorities. The violence of the reaction reached such a height that Angouleme, now on the march to Cadiz, was compelled to publish an ordinance forbidding arrests to be made without the consent of a French commanding officer, and ordering his generals to release the persons who had been arbitrarily imprisoned. The council of ambassadors, blind in their jealousy of France to the danger of an uncontrolled restoration, drew up a protest against his ordinance, and desired that the officers of the Regency should be left to work their will.

After spending some weeks in idle debates at Seville, the Cortes had been compelled by the appearance of the French on the Sierra Morena to retire to Cadiz. As King Ferdinand refused to accompany them, he was declared temporarily insane, and forced to make the journey (June 12th). Angouleme, following the French vanguard after a considerable interval, appeared be fore Cadiz in August, and sent a note to King Ferdinand, recommending him to publish an amnesty and to promise the restoration of the medieval Cortes. It was hoped that the terms suggested in this note might be accepted by the Government in Cadiz as a basis of peace, and so render an attack upon the city unnecessary. The Ministry, however, returned a defiant answer in the King’s name. The siege of Cadiz accordingly began in earnest. On August 30th the fort of the Trocadero was stormed; three weeks later the city was bombarded. In reply to all proposals for negotiation Angouleme stated that he could only treat when King Ferdinand was within his own lines. There was not the least hope of prolonging the defense of Cadiz with success, for the combat was dying out even in those few districts of Spain where the constitutional troops had fought with energy. Ferdinand himself pretended that he bore no grudge against his ministers, and that the Liberals had nothing to fear from his release. On September 30th he signed, as if with great satisfaction, an absolute and universal amnesty. On the following day he was conveyed with his family across the bay to Angouleme’s headquarters.

The war was over: the real results of the French invasion now came into sight. Ferdinand had not been twelve hours in the French camp when, surrounded by Royalist desperadoes, he published a proclamation invalidating every act of the constitutional Government of the last three years, on the ground that his sanction had been given under constraint. The same proclamation ratified the acts of the Regency of Madrid. As the Regency of Madrid had declared all persons concerned in the removal of the King to Cadiz to be liable to the penalties of high treason, Ferdinand had in fact ratified a sentence of death against several of the men from whom he had just parted in friendship. Many of these victims of the King’s perfidy were sent into safety by the French. But Angouleme was powerless to influence Ferdinand’s policy and conduct. Don Saez, the King’s confessor, was made First Secretary of State. On October 4th an edict was issued banishing forever from Madrid, and from the country fifty miles round it, every person who during the last three years had sat in the Cortes, or who had been a minister, counsellor of state, judge, commander, official in any public office, magistrate, or officer in the so-called voluntary militia.

Thus, the war of revenge was openly declared against the defeated party. It was in vain that Angouleme indignantly reproached the King, and that the ambassadors of the three Eastern courts pressed him to draw up at least some kind of amnesty. Ferdinand travelled slowly toward Madrid, saying that he could take no such step until he reached the capital. On November 7th Riego was hanged. Thousands of persons were thrown into prison or compelled to fly from the country. Except where order was preserved by the French, life and property were at the mercy of Royalist mobs; and although the influence of the Russian statesman Pozzo di Borgo at length brought a respectable ministry into office, this only roused the fury of the clerical party, and led to a cry for the deposition of the King, and for the elevation of his more fanatical brother, Don Carlos, to the throne. Military commissions were instituted at the beginning of 1824 for the trial of accused persons, and a pretended amnesty, published six months later, included in its fifteen classes of exception the participators in almost every act of the revolution.

Ordinance followed upon ordinance, multiplying the acts punishable with death, and exterminating the literature which was believed to be the source of all religious and social heterodoxy. Every movement of life was watched by the police; every ex pression of political opinion was made high treason. Young men were shot for being freemasons; women were sent to prison for ten years for possessing a portrait of Riego. The relation of the restored Government to its subjects was in fact that which belonged to a state of civil war. Insurrections arose among the fanatics who were now taking the name of the Carlist or Apos tolic party, as well as among a despairing remnant of the Constitutionalists. After a feeble outbreak of the latter at Tarifa, a hundred twelve persons were put to death by the military com missions within eighteen days. It was not until the summer of 1825 that the jurisdiction of these tribunals and Spain’s ” reign of terror” ended.

This ends our series of passages on Spanish Demand Constitution by Charles A. Fyffe from his book History of Modern Europe published in 1890. This blog features short and lengthy pieces on all aspects of our shared past. Here are selections from the great historians who may be forgotten (and whose work have fallen into public domain) as well as links to the most up-to-date developments in the field of history and of course, original material from yours truly, Jack Le Moine. – A little bit of everything historical is here.

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