SPAIN
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SPAIN
Spanish people would not brook; rising, after the ter-
rible Second of May, 1808, they fought the glorious
War of Independence, in which Napoleon suffered his
first reverses. The most celebrated battles of this
war were those of Bruch, in the highlands of Mont-
serrat, in which the Catalan sonielanes (peasant sol-
diers) routed a French army ; Bailen, where Castaiies,
at the head of the army of Andalusia, defeated Du-
pont; and the sieges of Saragossa and Gerona, which
were worthy of the ancient Spaniards of Saguntum
and Numantia. The British general, Welhngton,
gained the battles of Salamanca (1812) and Vittoria
(1813), and helped to drive the French out of the
Peninsula. But while the Spanish people were shed-
ding their blood for their faith, their country, and
their king, the Liberals, assembled in the Cortes of
ance, however, which sent to Spain the "hundred
thousand sons of St. Louis", restored the old order of
things. The French soldiers, who had met with such
desperate resistance at the hands of the Spaniards in
the time of Napoleon, were then received as brothers
and liberators, and the Constitution was abohshed.
But the Liberals took advantage of the dynastic
question, which arose on the death of Ferdinand VII,
to revive their party. The king had no male issue and
only tW'O daughters, who by the Salic Law (brought
into Spain by the Bourbons), were incapable of suc-
ceeding to the Throne. The king accordingly pro-
posed to set aside the Salic Law and re-establish the
ancient Spanish law of succession, which admitted fe-
males, failing male issues. The question, whether the
Salic Law was or was not legitimately abrogated,
View of Sa
New Cathedral, from the River Tobm
Cadiz (1812), were drafting a Constitution modelled
on the French. Ferdinand VII, however, liberated
by Napoleon, returned to Spain, refused to recognize
this Constitution, and restored the old regime, thus
initiating that struggle between Absolutists and Lib-
erals which lasted throughout the nineteenth century.
The old colonies of Spain in Mexico and South .Amer-
ica took advantage of this conflict to make them-
selves independent.
That moral unity which the Catholic Sovereigns had restored in Spain by the expulsion of the Jews, the subjection of the Moors, and the establishment of Catholic unity, was broken by the influx of ideas from the French Revolution and I'^nglish Liberalism. Face to face with the Spanish ponplp, so strongly attached to their ancient traditions and forms of government, there arose the Const it utidiuil Party, which at first proclaimed no further aim than the establishment of representative government, saving the principle of re- ligious unity. But the Liberals, persccuteil in 1812, pushed their ideas to extniiics and. profiting by a military in.surrect ion in 1S2(I (Dun Hafiu'l dc Hicgo), finally proclaimed the Const it iil ion ;ind forced Ferdi- nand VII to swear to it. The ('on.stilutioiialisis then split into the two parties — Extremes and Moderates (Exditados and Moderadus) — which have continued to the present time. The intcirention of the Holy Alli-
formed the legal basis of the dyniist ic quarrel between
Don Carlos (Charles) V, brother of Ferdinand VII,
and his daughter Dona Isabel II.
The true animus of the conflict, liowever, arose from the division of Spaniards into Traditionalists who supported the cause of Don Carlos, and Liberals, who sided with Dona Isabel and her mother, Doiia Cristina. This division — the origin of all the ills which Spain suffered in the nineteenth centurv' — led to the Seven Years' War, from 1833, wlien Ferdinand VII died, to 1839, when the Convention of Vergara was signed. In the meantime the Liberals ruled, ex- cept in the provinces occupied by the Carlists, and the Moderate ministry of Martinez de la Rosa, during which the horrible massacre of friars took place at Madrid (17 July, 1834), was succeeded by those of Toreno and of Mendizdbal, who put up the posses- sions of the Church for sale (1836). The predomi- nance of the ExnUados culminated with the regency of Espartero (1841). who closed the Nunciature and broke off all relations with Home. The queen having been declared of age. Ih.' Moderate Narvaez ministry vMw into [jower, .-xilrd lOspiirliTo, and suspended the sale of church properly. Relations with Rome were resumed, and Spain intervened in Iiehalf of Pius IX, who had been driven to take refuge at (laeta. In 1851 the Concordat, regulating the new conditions of
