Spanish Demand Constitution

This series has six easy 5 minute installments. This first installment: King Ferdinand Returns to Spain.

Introduction
In Spain, as in the rest of Europe, the overthrow of Napoleon was followed by a restoration of the ancient forms of authority. King Ferdinand VII had received from the Spanish people evidences of the most devoted loyalty. In his name they had maintained their long struggle against Bonaparte, Ferdinand himself meanwhile being a prisoner-guest in France, receiving from Napoleon an enormous income, and writing to him letters overflowing with professions of warm attachment.

In 1812 the Spanish people, with English help, had driven back the French invaders and established a constitutional government. In 1814 King Ferdinand returned from France to resume the rule of a country that was half tempted to disown him in scorn at the contemptible figure he had so far made in every epoch of his life. He evaded the swearing of allegiance to the newly established constitution, which he presently rejected altogether, imprisoning the men who had established it. Having thus punished those who had made his restoration possible, he began a career of the most unbridled and savage despotism.

Fyffe, the English historian of modern Europe, has given one of the latest and certainly most dramatic accounts of the causes, progress, and significance of the rebellion that ensued.

This selection is from History of Modern Europe by Charles A. Fyffe published in 1890. For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages.

Charles A. Fyffe (1845-1892) was an English historian, journalist, and politician for the Liberal Party.

Time: 1812-1820

When the guardians of Europe, at the end of the first three years of peace, scanned from their council-chamber at Aix-la-Chapelle * that goodly heritage which, under Providence, their own parental care was henceforth to guard against the assaults of malice and revolution, they had fixed their gaze chiefly on France, Germany, and the Netherlands as the regions most threatened by the spirit of change. The forecast was not accurate. In each of these countries government proved during the succeeding years to be much more than a match for its real or imaginary foes: it was in the Mediterranean states, which had excited comparatively little anxiety, that the first successful attack was made upon established power. Three movements arose successively in the three southern peninsulas, at the time when Metternich was enjoying the silence which he had imposed upon Germany, and the Ultraroyalists of France were making good the advantage which the crime of an individual and the imprudence of a party had thrown into their hands. In Spain and in Italy a body of soldiers rose in behalf of constitutional government: in Greece a nation rose against the rule of the foreigner.

[* The Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle (October, 1818), representatives of the powers, concerted measures for the settlement of European affairs. This was three years after the Second Peace of Paris, which ended the Napoleonic Wars. — Ed.]

In all three countries the issue of these movements was determined by the Northern powers. All three movements were at first treated as identical, and all alike condemned as the work of Jacobinism. But the course of events, and a change of per sons in the government of one great state, brought about a truer view of the nature of the struggle in Greece. The ultimate action of Europe in the affairs of that country was different from its action in the affairs of Italy and Spain. It is now only remembered as an instance of political recklessness or stupidity that a conflict of race against race and of religion against religion should for a while have been confused by some of the leading ministers of Europe with the attempt of a party to make the form of domestic government more liberal. The Hellenic rising had indeed no feature in common with the revolutions of Naples and Cadiz; and, although in order of time the opening of the Greek movement long preceded the close of the Spanish movement, the historian, who has neither the politician’s motive for making a con fusion, nor the protection of his excuse of ignorance, must in this case neglect the accidents of chronology, and treat the two as altogether apart.

King Ferdinand of Spain, after overthrowing the constitution which he found in existence on his return to his country, had conducted himself as if his object had been to show to what lengths a legitimate monarch might abuse the fidelity of his sub jects and defy the public opinion of Europe. The leaders of the Cortes, whom he had arrested in 1814, after being declared innocent by one tribunal after another, were sentenced to long terms of imprisonment by an arbitrary decree of the King, without even the pretense of judicial forms. Men who had been conspicuous in the struggle of the nation against Napoleon were neglected or disgraced; many of the highest posts were filled by politicians who had played a double part or had even served under the invader. Priests and courtiers intrigued for influence over the King; even when a capable minister was placed in power through the pressure of the ambassadors, and the King’s name was set to edicts of administrative reform, these edicts were made a dead letter by the powerful band who lived upon the corruption of the public service. The peasant, who knew that his house would not now be burned by the French and who heard that true religion had at length triumphed over its enemies, understood, and cared to understand, nothing more. Rumors of kingly misgovernment and oppression scarcely reached his ears. Ferdinand was still the child of Spain and of the Church; his return had been the return of peace; his rule was the victory of the Catholic faith.

But the acquiescence of the mass of the people was not shared by the officers of the army and the educated classes in the towns. The overthrow of the constitution was from the first condemned by soldiers who had won distinction under the government of the Cortes; and a series of acts of military rebellion, though isolated and on the smallest scale, showed that the course on which Ferdinand had entered was not altogether free from danger. The attempts of General Mina in 1814, and of Porlier and Lacy in succeeding years, to raise the soldiery in behalf of the constitution, failed, through the indifference of the soldiery themselves.

Discontent made its way in the army by slow degrees; and the ultimate declaration of a military party against the existing Government was due at least as much to Ferdinand’s absurd system of favoritism, and to the wretched condition into which the army had been thrown, as to an attachment to the memory or the principles of constitutional rule. Misgovernment made the treasury bankrupt; soldiers and sailors received no pay for years together; and the hatred with which the Spanish people had now come to regard military service is curiously shown by an order of the Government that all the beggars in Madrid and other great towns should be seized on a certain night (July 23, 1816) and enrolled in the army. But the very beggars were more than a match for Ferdinand’s administration. They heard of the fate in store for them, and mysteriously disappeared, so frustrating a measure by which it had been calculated that Spain would gain sixty thousand warriors.

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